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K()d Scrlings

JUNE 1983 / $2.50

14369

WILIGHT ZOKti^ MOVIE
KICKED AND THE KEEP

ELLER V.C. ANDREWS

NEW JOURNEYS OF THE IMAGINATION
AND ALWAYS . . THE UNEXPECTED

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C O N T' E N T S

FICTION May /June 1983

The Raft

Stephen King

In the Field of the Dying Cherry Tree

Curtis K. Stadtfeld

Harry's Story

Robert H. Curtis

The Tuck at the Foot of the Bed

Ardath Mayhar

A Fragment of Fact

Chris Massie

Takeover Bid

Andrew Weiner

Listen

Joe R. Lansdale

FEATURES

In the Twilight Zone

TZ Interview: V. C. Andrews

Lorenzo Carcaterra

Screen Preview: TZ's Triple Bill

'Something Wicked This Way Comes'

Ed Naha

'Psycho ir *

James Vemiere

'The Keep'

James Vemiere

Confessions of a Freelance Fantasist: Part One

Isidore Haiblum

The Fantasy Five-Foot Shelf Thomas M. Disch, R. S. Hadji,

Karl Edward Wagner

Show-by-Show Guide to TV's 'Twilight Zone': Part Twenty-Four

Marc Scott Zicree

TZ Classic Teleplay: 'The Lonely'

Rod Serling

OTHER DIMENSIONS

Books

Thomas M. Disch

Screen

Gahan Wilson

Music: Bernard Herrmann

Jack Sullivan

Nostalgia: Walking with Zombies and Other Saturday Afternoon Delights

Ron Goulart

Quiz: Fantasy Acrostic §1

Peter Cannon

Etc.

4 Twilight Zone

Cone
fever ...

Psycho is, as we all know, the
movie that made millions of
Americans afraid to take a shower
(having been forced to hear this over
and over for the past twenty years,
Robert Bloch was finally driven to
remark, "I'm just glad I didn't have
my heroine killed while on the
toilet!"), but .the movie had, on me,
a different effect: it gave me an
almost superstitious awe of
psychiatrists.

It wasn't the movie itself that got
to me; I was unimpressed by that
improbable Hollywood shrink who
shows up at the end of the film just
in time to tie up the loose plot
threads. Rather, what caught my
fancy was a real-life psychiatrist — a
family friend we'll call Joan — who
happened to come along when m^
parents and I first saw Psycho back
in 1960, a few days after it opened.
The shower scene had just ended, I
recall; the amateur taxidermist,
Norman Bates, was staring horror-
struck at the carnage in the bathroom
and moaning, "Oh, Mother!" And
suddenly Joan clapped her hand to
her head and exclaimed, in a voice
loud enough for people in the next
row to hear, "My God! He's killed
his mother and he thinks he's her!"

We all greeted this crazy, off-the-
wall comment with the derision it
deserved; set, no doubt, did the
people in the next row. And soon
afterward Joan agreed that she must
have been mistaken, since the voice
of Norman's unseen mother was so
clearly different from that of Anthony
Perkins. (Recently I've heard reports
that the mother's voice was, in fact,
dubbed by someone else — which, if
true, is rather a cheat.)

But of course, in the end, Joan
turned out to be right. We were all
extremely respectful. Later, when I
congratulated her on her insight, she
denied it was anything special. "Sheer
luck," she said.

Readers will soon be able to test
their own insight — or luck — by
attempting to guess the ending of
Psycho II. JAMES VERNIERE, who
previews it on page 53, was kept
unusually busy this time, interviewing
Anthony Perkins and director Richard
Franklin, as well as Michael Mann,
who directed The Keep, and Aussie

star Mel Gibson of Road Warrior
fame. (Don't miss that one!)

ED NAHA, who covers Something
Wicked for us here, has also kept
busy lately, with two more books
just out: The Suicide Plague, an sf
novel, and Brilliance on a Budget, an
illustrated filmography of Roger
Gorman.

Sheer luck of the fateful kind
seems to have played a role in the
publication of STEPHEN KING'S The
Raft, though the result, for readers, is
sheer horror. The original story dates
back to the 1960s, to a day King
spent lying on the beach, gazing at a
wooden float out in the water and
imagining — well, there's no sense
giving things away. Suffice it to say
that he conjured up a truly stomach-
churning scene, one that ends with a
class ring lying forlornly on the
wooden boards.

King wrote it all down and tried
it on an audience. "I remember
reading the story at a coffee house,"
he says, "and having people almost
throw up." Clearly it was a success.
He entitled it "The Float" and sent it
off to Adam, a men's magazine.

Months passed, then a whole
year, and eventually the story was
forgotten . . . until the day King -
found himself arrested. "I was driving
on the highway and I ran over one
of those rubber traffic cones," he
explains. "It knocked my muffler
loose." And so, being a man with a
grievance, he did the natural thing:
he proceeded to scoop up every cone
he passed, gradually filling his car
with them. (He says that at another
time in his criminal career he'd
amassed "sixty or seventy" such
cones. As someone who, like King,

taught high scho(3l English in Maine
during the 1960s and spent hours
traveling its big empty highways, I
can attest to the strange allure of
those cones, and admit to grabbing
one or two myself.) King was
eventually picked up by the police,
found guilty of petty larceny, and
fined $250 — which, at that time, he
didn't have. "1 tfiought I'd be forced
to sell the car," he recalls. But when
he got home that day, his wife
Tabitha greeted him with the news
that a check had just arrived in the
mail. It was from Adam, in payment
for "The Float," and it came to
exactly $250. "So all I did was cash
the check and pay the fine," he says.

There's an odd postscript to all
this. Adam, King is sure, paid only
on publication, not on acceptance;
and yet he's equally sure that the
story never actually came out — at
least not that he's ever heard of.
Instead, more than a decade later he
reworked the piei:e, retitled it The
Raft, and sold it to Gallery,

TZ's — what should I call it? — sister
magazine? Big brother? Daddy? At
any rate, it appe.ired ip Gallery's
November '82 issue. We're reprinting
it here on the assumption (based on
demographic studies) that the two
audiences don't overlap very much,
and in the certainty that the story is
more suited to our own readership.
Be warned, though: Rod Serling
would never have touched it for The
Twilight Zone. It's far too savage for
the tube.

That's why, for balance. I've
stocked this issue with tales that are
light, whimsical, or at least
reasonably serene. A roster of our
authors: ROBERT H. CURTIS, a

6 Twilight Zone

former physician, now lectures at
Stanford University's School of
Medicine and has five popular
medical books behind him, plus a
string of mystery and science fiction
stories. JOE R. LANSDALE, that
prolific Texan, is making his fifth TZ
appearance. Having psychoanalyzed
Frankenstein's monster in our
Jan. /Feb. issue, he's now back with
an even crazier couch case. CHRIS
MASSIE, who died in 1964 at age
eighty-five, was a British novelist best
known for Hallelujah Chorus
(published here as The Falcon Road)
and Corridor of Mirrors, filmed in
the 1940s. His A Fragment of Fact, a
tale both inexplicable (in the Robert
Aickman manner) and charming,
appeared in a Faber & Faber
collection in England and has been
reprinted there, but this is the first
time, to my knowledge, that it's
appeared in the U.S. ARDATH
MAYHAR, a widely published
fantasist, is a youthful grandmother
who raises cattle, goats, and rabbits
down in Chireno, Texas. Among her
most recent projects: continuing the
"Fuzzy" series (using characters
created by the late H. Beam Piper) in
Golden Dream from Ace. CURTIS K.
STADTFELD teaches English at
Eastern Michigan University and runs
the Clinton Local, a weekly
newspaper. His stories have appeared
in Yankee, Ms., and Family Circle.
ANDREW WEINER, a London-born
freelance journalist now living in
Toronto, has written for magazines
from Reader's Digest to New Musical
Express and on subjects ranging from
rock to high financit. LORENZO
CARCATERRA, wfio conducted the
interview with V. C Andrews, is a

former New York Daily News
reporter. He recently moved to Time
Inc.'s new magazine, TV-Cable Week.

With this issue we're beginning a
three-part series by ISIDORE
HAIBLUM in which the author of
such sf novels as The Return,
Interworld, Nightmare Express, and
The Tsaddik of the Seven Wonders —
some hard-boiled, some slapstick,
each lively as all get-out — casts a
jaundiced (but still determinedly
twinkling) eye on his own career and
tells you how to follow in his
footsteps ... if you dare.

Finally come our list-makers,
three of the best-read people I know.
There's our book columnist,

THOMAS M. DISCH, hailed by a
British reviewer as "the finest intellect
in science fiction today." Most recent
collections: The Man Who Had No
Idea (stories) and Bum This (poems).
There's psychiatrist-turned-fantasist
KARL EDWARD WAGNER, creator—
whether in his own Kane series or in
his continuation of Robert E.

Howard's Conan — of the most
intelligent sword and sorcery you'll
find today. (He's also a give-'em-their-
money's-worth fantasy publisher and
the editor of DAW's Year's Best
Horror stories.) Finally, there's R. S.
HADJI, totally sui generis, who
describes himself as merely "an avid
reader and collector of supernatural
literature" and insists he leads "a
rather ordinary existence in Toronto,"
but who has, in fact, a mind like the
card catalogue of a well-stocked ^
library of the weird. He's read
everything and remembers every
word; would that we all could do
likewise.

— TK

ROO SERLING’S

TODGHT

MAGAZINE

S. Edward Orenstein
President & Chairman
Sidney Z. Gellman
Secretary/ Treasurer
Leon Garry
Eric Protter

Executive Vice-Presidents

Executive Publisher:

S. Edward Orenstein
Publisher: Eric Protter
Associate Publisher and
Consulting Editor: Carol Serling

Editor: T.E.D. Klein
Managing Editor: Jane Bayer
Associate Editor: RTobert Sabat
Contributing Editors:

Thomas M. Disch, Gahan Wilson,

Marc Scott Zicree

Design Director: Michael Monte
Art Director: Pat E. McQueen
Art Production:

Susan Lindeman, Carol Sun.
Typesetting: Irma Landazuri

Production Director:

Stephen J. Fallon

Controller: Thomas Schiff
Ass't to the Publisher: Judy Linden
Public Relations Manager.:

Jeffrey Nickora

Accounting Mgr.: Chris Grossman
Acccjpnting Ass't: Annmarie Pistilli
Office Ass't: Miriam Wolf
Vice President, Circulation Director:
Milton J. Cuevas

Circulation Mgr.: Carole A. Harley
Circulation Ass't: Karen Martorano
Eastern Circ. Mgr.: Hank Rosen
West Coast Circ. Mgr.:

Gary Judy, Van Nuys, CA

Advertising Manager: Rachel Britapaja
Adv. Production Manager:

Marina Despotakis
Adv. Ass't: Katherine Lys
Advertising Representative:

Bob LaBuddie, 2640 Golf Rd., Suite
219 Glenview, IL 60025 (312) 724-5490

Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Magazine, 1983, Volume 3,
Number 2, is publishecf bimonthly in the United Slates and
simultaneously in Canada by TZ Publications, Inc., BOO
Second Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10017. Telephone (212)
986-9600. Copyright © 1983 by TZ Publications, Inc. Rod
Serling's The Twilight Zone Magazine is published pursuant
to a license from Carolyn Serling and Viacom Enterprises, a
division of Viacom International, Inc. All rights reserved.
Second-class postage paid at New York, NY, and at addi-
tional mailing offices. Responsibility is not assumed for
unsolicited materials. Return postage must accompany all
unsolicited material if return is requested. All rights reserved
on material accepted for publication unless otherwise
specified. All letters sent to Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone
Magazine or to its editors are assumed intended for publica-
tion. Nothing may be reproduced in whole or in part with-
out written permission from the publishers. Any similarity
between persons appearing in fiction and real persons living
or dead is coincidental. Single copies $2.50 in U.S., $3 in
Canada. Subscriptions: U.S., U.S. possessions, Canada, and
APO — one year, 6 issues: $15 ($18 in Canadian currency).
Postmaster: Send address changes to P.O. Box 252, Mt.
Morris, 11 61054. Printed in U.S. A.

Twilight Zone 7

M E N S I O N S

There has been increasingly
louder lamentation in the publishing
industry during the last few years
over the fate of what is
, euphemistically called mid-list fictton,
by which is meant novels not likely
to become bestsellers. Most fiction of
any quality nowadays falls into this
mid-list category, as witness the now
virtually total disparity between the
books the New York Times Book
Review commends to our attention
and those that fill its hardcover and
paperback bestseller lists. The most
dire consequence of this schispi is that
paperback houses are simply refusing
to reprint mid-list titles, even when a
majority of reviewers has written rave
reviews. This attitude was pithily
expressed at a recent PEN symposium
by Robert Wyatt, then chief editor of
Avon Books: "You should know that
in the paperback business, quotes
don't mean diddly-shit."

The industry, Wyatt maintains, is
interested in reprinting only two kinds
of books, bestsellers and category
books. "By a category book," Wyatt
said, "I mean something lower . . .

The wholesaler says, 'Give me your
Westerns. Give me your science
fiction . . . ' He really would rather
have the series number than the title
or the author." (Wyatt's quotes are
taken from a transcript of the
Publishing Industry Symposium
published in PEN Newsletter. This
transcript is reprinted in the current
issue of The Patchin Review [$2.00 at
most sf book stores], together with
comments and reactions from various
sf writers.)

The more sensitive sf writers and
readers may take umbrage at having
8 Twilight Zone

the genre summed up as "something
lower," but there is a dollop of cold
comfort in still being considered
publishable. However, the same tiered
structure of bestseller/ mid-
list/ Something Lower exists within the
field of sf, where it is producing the
same squeeze on mid-list titles.

Consider the sf titles now on the
Times list. There is The E. T.
Storybook, titles by Clarke and
Asimov (having reviewed them
elsewhere, I won't rehash my
dissatisfaction with Foundation's Edge
and 2010 except to say I found the
plots of both books numbingly ,
predictable and the wattage of the
prose varying between 60 and 15), a
prehistoric bodice-ripper, and a new
potpourri of toothless whimsies by
Douglas Adams. A sorry lot, but no
sorrier, in literary terms, than the rest
of the list, which this week (Jan. 9,
1983) contained not a single title
remotely conceivable as a candidate
for the major literary awards.

Meanwhile, in the realm of
Something Lower, where books are
but numbers in a series, the hacks
grind out and the presses print the sf
equivalent of Silhouette Romances.

The sheer mass of Perry Rhodan
lookalikes and fantasy-gaming
disguised as books is awesome in
much the same way that Niagara Falls
is awesome: there is so much of it
and it never stops. The metaphor
needn't stop there: it is, similarly, not
very potable, and most of it courses
through the paperback racks without
ever being reviewed. Why should it
be, after all? Are sneakers or soft
drinks or matchbooks reviewed?
Commodities are made to be

consumed, and surely it is an
unkindness for those favored by
fortune with steak in plenty to be
disdainful of the "taste" of people
who must make do with Hamburger
Helper.

Surely: except that we live in a
world where steak;, in the literary
sense, is being ph.jsed out of
existence. The same megatrends that
are endangering mid-list titles in
fiction at large (conglomerate
takeovers, accountants in the saddle,
declining reading ;;kills among the
young, and a tacit understanding
among those in charge of the
economy that an educated consumer
is bad for busines:?) aren't likely to
exempt the sf mid-list from the same
promised extinction. Or, in the
concluding words of that sad captain
of the publishing industry, Robert
Wyatt, the prospect for writers of
mid-list novels is "extremely
depressing." It is a comfort to see
tears glisten even in the eye of one's
executioner.

All this preamble by way of
celebrating three new novels, each of
which is a work of enough distinction
to merit a column by itself. Each is
written with an ardor, flair, and
demand upon readerly intelligence that
would seem to de;;tine it to a mid-list
existence, and, that demand being
met, each is a joy to read.

Book by book, that's saying a
lot, but stacked up all three together,
it seems reason to rebel against the
gloomiest doomsday forebodings of
the PEN symposiasts. Which is not to
say that Hamburger Helper shall
disappear from the American diet and
we shall all eat steak in the great by-
and-by. Only that a preference for
steak is innate in human nature, and
while there are people with strong
teeth and sound digestions there will
be butcher shops. Or (as that may
offend vegetarian readers): gather ye
rosebuds while ye may.

At the present moment the most
reliable butcher shop (or florist),
science fictionally ispeaking, is
Timescape Books, which has published
two of the three books under
consideration — Gene Wolfe's The
Citadel of the Autarch ($15.95) and
Norman Spinrad's The Void Captain's
Tale ($13.95).

Citadel is the fourth (though not
quite conclusive) volume in Wolfe's

GENE\)dxFE
THE CITADEL OF
THE AUTARCH

tetralogy. The Book of the New Sun,
whose popular success has confounded
all conventional wisdom, both the
Industry's and my own. The Shadow
of the Torturer won a World Fantasy
Award, The Claw of the Conciliator a
Nebula, and last year s The Sword of
the Lictor is the likeliest mammalian
contender in a field liable to be
dominated by four dinosaurs — Clarke,
Asimov, Heinlein, and Hubbard. Now
we have Citadel, and it is possible to
take a deep breath and try, if not to
achieve closure, at least to figure out
what really happens and what it all
means.

For rarely has there been a work
of genre fiction in which the import
of the story is so elusive, to say
nothing of the bare facts. Such was
its appeal to the literary detective in
me that halfway through this last
volume I could resist no longer and
phoned up my old friend and fellow
Wolfe-enthusiast, John Clute, to
suggest that we not wait the dozen or
so years that even a masterpiece is
supposed to age in the cask but set
about at once to edit a volume of
interpretive essays, supplemented with
a glossary and other suitable rites of
scholarship. John said, "Good idea,"
and immediately began to jot down
some questions that remained moot
after his first reading of the four
volumes, but still seemed answerable.
As a sample of the fascination of The
Book of the New Sun, I can't resist
quoting (with his permission) from
John's list of conundrums:

" — Who is the woman lying
bleeding beneath the Matachin Tower
whom Severian almost forgets?

" — Just how is an Autarch
actually chosen? And who is Paeon?

" — Are all the khaibits in the
novel identified as such? And just
how do exultants prolong their lives?

" — Is Cyriaca S's mother?" (After
more reflection, John concluded that
Cyriaca was not Severian's mother,
and he developed an ingenious theory
of who, amazingly, his mother might
be, which I'm sworn not to hint at
here, as John's entitled to dibs for his
discovery.)

Do you begin to sense what very
odd books these must be that they
can leave such questions in the air
and still generate such applause and
loyalty? Of the four volumes Citadel
is surely the oddest, for it is almost
perversely anticlimactic in its denial of
those pleasures usually associated with
finishing a long epic narrative; there
are no confrontation scenes between
Severian and the many major
characters from the earlier volumes
(no accounting, indeed, for many of
them), no poetic justice for the
villains, no coronal ceremonies for the
triumphant hero. The last eight
chapters, which show Severian as
Autarch, are one long dying fall, as
though no music would suit the rites
of passage to ethical maturity (for this
is what the allegory is allegorizing;
that much at least is clear) save the
muffled drumbeats of a funeral march.

I realize this is not the stuff that
blurb-writers' dreams are made of, but
most sf readers by now will already
have begun to read The Book of the
New Sun and will know their own
taste in the matter. Nor can I imagine
that any reader of the first three
volumes could be prevented from
continuing to the end. At this
moment the whole tetralogy seems
simply too large for ordinary critical
epithets to apply; one might as well
scrawl "pretty damned big!" on the
Great Pyramid.

Temperamentally no two authors
could be more unlike than Gene
Wolfe and Norman Spinrad, and few
novels could be more disparate in
their achievement than The Book of
the New Sun and The Void Captain's
Tale. Wolfe is decorous, devious,
sacerdotal; one suspects that, like T.

S. Eliot, he is an Anglican in his

religion, a monarchist in his politics.
Spinrad is brash, forthright, profane;
his intellectual allegiances hark back
not centuries but a mere twenty-five
years to the late fifties, when
Spinrad's namesake and role-model,
Norman Mailer, was in flower.

Mailer's chief significance- to
writer^ of my own and Norman's
generation can be bounded in the
nutshells of two powerful stories from
Advertisements for Myself (1959),

"The Man Who Studied Yoga" and
"The Time of Her Time." In those
stories Mailer found a new way to
turn to account the sexual explicitness
that recent court decisions had made
possible for American writers. Prior to
Mailer, writing about sex tended to
fall into two categories — the steamy (a
tradition carried on in our time by
Judith Krantz, Harold Robbins, et al)
and the risque, a category broad
enough to subsume centuries of
bawdry from Rabelais to the joke
pages of Playboy. Both modes tend to
trivialize sex and deny its sometime
sublimity. Mailer found a language
that was street-wise without being
loutish, eloquent without gushing, a
language more true to sexual
experience than any of his
contemporaries.

Norman Spinrad was the first sf
writer to apply the lessons of Mailer
to the material of science fiction, and
he was rewarded for his achievement
by having the book in which he did
this, Bug Jack Barron (1969), banned
from England's largest bookstore chain

-t

Twilight Zone 9

BOOKS

and denounced in the House of
Commons. Spinrad has written seven
novels since then, only one of which
departs markedly from a Mailerean
rhetoric. The lone exception is the
delightfully bonkers The Iron Dream
(1972), which purports to be an sf
pulp adventure penned by Adolf
Hitler. In the other novels (excepting
the latest), Spinrad was up against the
same problem that so often baffled
Mailer in his later fiction: the voice
he'd crafted for his breakthrough
work did not always suit later
occasions. A World Between (1979),
an effort to confront the issues raised
by feminism, seemed to me as
tendentious and off-target as Mailer's
The Prisoner of Sex, while Songs
from the Stars (1980) created a post-
Apocalyptic utopia from (laid- back-
issues of the Whole Earth Catalogue
that shared the problem of most
utopias: blandness. The Void ^
Captain's Tale represents a new
synthesis of Spinrad's main strengths.
The earnestness of the metasexual
theorizer is qualified by the irony and
livened by the playfulness that has
characterized The Iron Dream and his
best short fiction.

The central premise could not be
simpler: interstellar flight by means of
electronically amplified orgasm. Only
female orgasm, however, acts as
propellant; the male role is the
honorific one of pressing the takeoff
button — and therein lies The Void
Captain’s Tale. The reductio ad
absurdum of the old metaphor/
equation. Orgasm = Grail, is
elaborated in great extrapolative
detail, but the central sexual drama
would soon come to seem an
absurdity plain and simple if Spinrad
had not cast his tale into an evolved
lingo of his own invention, a kind of
Berlitz for Space Travelers that
generates an atmosphere of constant,
ever-shifting unnaturalness. It is a
langugage as capable of flights of
eloquence as of pratfalls of
pomposity. The effect of reading
much of it, as with the neo-English of
A Clockwork Orange or Riddley
Walker, is that as we learn the
language we enter the culture of the
book, becoming, in effect, its
naturalized citizens. The comparison
to Burgess's and Walker's books can
be misleading in one way, however,
for the effect of the Spinradical sprach
is not so much to make commonplace

-■- ANOVEL

; r THE BIRTHn I

ii — OFTHE^ - !

PEOPLE'S
REPUBLIC i ^

/WsRCnCA

speech richer, stranger, and more
poetic, but to signify the artifice of all
social conventions, to be symptomatic
of the central thesis of the book — that
the sexual grail is something that
words, in their nature, cannot express.

The Birth of the People's Republic
of Antarctica by John Calvin
Batchelor (Dial, $16.95) is not
published as a science fiction novel,
but as a "novel of the imminent
future." Usually I would argue that
any story set in the future is by its
nature science fiction, but Batchelor's
muse harks back to far older
traditions, as far back, indeed, as
Beowulf, though Moby Dick is
probably a more apt formal
comparison. There is the same potent
mix of epic adventure and lofty
speculation acted out by larger-than-
life figures against a background of
global dimensions — in this case, a near
future crisis that has filled the oceans
of the world with a multinational
diaspora of supremely wretched men
and women. (That's a quote from the
book jacket, but I don't think it's
cheating to repeat it, since it was a
quote I wrote.) The book chronicles a
Swedish prison break led by the
hero's Ahab-large grandfather; a
voyage ever-Southwards through an
Atlantic as dismal as the oceans of
Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon
Pym; then, with uncanny prescience
(for this was written and contracted
before the actual British-Argentine
war), Batchelor depicts a war in the

Falkland Islands, which leads to the
book's awesome conclusion in the "ice
camps " of Antarctica. Here is a
sample of the author's summing-up of
the situation in Chapter the Last:

The wretched in the South, we
wretches, we were not all innocent
victims of some fabulous conspiracy to
disenfranchise lambs. . . . We , , .
were the worst piossible remnant. The
genuine meek, ttie genuinely wronged,
they had been left far behind, dead in
their hovels, on tlie beaches, in the sea.
We in the ice camps had come
through our ordeals because we were
tougher, wilder, c:rueler than our
brethren. We were the lucky remnant.
We were the mC'St vicious wretched:
pirates, killers, thieves, madmen, lost to
reason and utterly embittered. As we
suffered atrocities, we were atrocious.

. . , We did drink the blood. We did
eat the dead.

Batchelor manages to make good
on his promise of the highest and
widest drama precisely because he
keeps a certain distance from his cast
of high-voltage characters and handles
their passions, crimes, and ordeals
with electrician's gloves. He
anatomizes them, as a historian might,
rather than presenting them always in
cinematically detailed scenes. The
danger with this technique is that a
certain chill may set in (though it's
scarcely a danger in this book) or that
the prose may be infected with the
language of contemporary psychology,
a sorry fate for any novel. Again,
that danger nev(!r threatens, since
Batchelor took his degree at Union
Theological Seminary, and the
language he uses in his anatomies of
the soul is as timeless as the King *
James Bible's or Dr. Johnson's.

So there you have it — the
bulwark I'd propose against
the demise that's threatened to the
mid-list novel — to, that is, novels that
take risks and enhance rather than
insult the intelligence. As unlike each
other, one by one, as most
commodity-novels are alike. While
there are writers to write such books,
it is the publisheirs who deliberately
publish and promote dreck who
should find their lot, in Wyatt's
words, "extremely depressing," for
they must endure the Dantean
punishment of living in the stench of
the product they produce. 18

10 Twilight Zone

O T

I O

Videodrome

(Universal)

Written and directed
by David Cronenberg

The Dark Crystal
(Universal)

Directed by Jim Henson and Frank Oz
Screenplay by David Odell

Time was when the expert
filmmakers in the fantasy field leaned
heavily on suggestion for getting the
best effects. Don't show your marvel
too clearly — that was their
philosophy. Take your time with the
build-up. Bring it into sight as late as
possible, revealing it only after the
audience has been thoroughly
prepared for the wonder they're about
to see, only after they've been
emotionally softened by as many
psychological tricks as can tastefully
be brought to bear. And even then,
even after all that, don't show your
horrible creature or astonishing
machine too clearly. Shoot it in a dim
light. Let the audience see only parts
of it from confusing angles and, if at
all possible, give them only the
briefest glimpses of your incredible
whatsis.

Boris Karloff, dear old Boris
Karloff, said it all in a phrase when
Christopher Lee expressed nervous
doubt to him about his own ability to
demonstrate the full awfulness of
some terrible being he was trying to
create for the ticket-buyers. Smiling
kindly, if in a subtly sinister manner,
Karloff laid a thin, vaguely clawlike

Screen

by Gahan Wilson

It is not our fault that we have
become thus. It is clearly the fault of
the moviemakers. It is they who have
turned off our willingness to imagine
freely, they who have reduced our
ability to expand and develop from
mere hints. They have converted us
all into a troupe of viewers who must
have absolutely everything spelled out
before we can believe, or even
understand, what the producers of the
film are asking us to believe. They
did it step by step, showing us more
and more. The sexual movies, which
once had panned demurely away from
the loving leads just as they began to
breathe heavily, now feature de
rigueur shots of bare-ass humping,
without which even Little Women

hand on Lee's shoulder and gently
whispered: "Never worry on that
score, dear boy. The audience will do
it for you."

But that was Time Was. Time is
that we are no longer a nation of
dreamy, creative moviegoers, willing
and able to take the tiny peek Val
Lewton gave us of Simone Simon
turning darkish and to skillfully
convert it, inside our heads, into the
full transformation of a Serbian
beauty into one of the Cat People.-
Nor, today, will we accept without
question, just in the spirit of the
thing, a Fourth-of-July-sparkler-driven
interstellar rocket. We have become a
different sort of crew altogether. No
longer do we approach the movie
theater with a sense of poetic
participation, eager to share in the
creative act. Now we are stern
literalists who must be shown our
marvels and horrors, clearly and in
great detail.

would today be incomplete. So, too,
the purveyors of filmic ogres and
angels have gone steadily and
determinedly from soft-focused, dimly
lit evocations, to gentlemen and ladies
in increasingly elaborate and detailed
makeup, and on to a science of
special effects wliich will go to any
length of effort, ingenuity, and
expense in order to show us
absolutely everything about absolutely
anything the fevered script describes.

Two films have recently arrived
which were obviously designed to
illustrate the above thesis from
cleverly divergent angles. The first is
David Cronenberg's Videodrome, the
second Jim Henson and Frank Oz's
The Dark Crystal.

Videodrome is the strongest
statement I have seen yet of
Cronenberg's disgust with biological
processes and his deep fascination
with the purity of technology. 1 think
what he is doing, certainly in l

Scanners and in this film, is opting
for a kind of electronic evolution
which will, he hopes, eliminate the
homo sapiens, a bunch he views with
less than affection, and replace them
with something which functions
without glands or having to go to
the toilet.

However, I think he is somewhat
confused about all this, and somewhat
unsure. From all reports he is a loving
family man, has many loyal friends,
and is generally — for a movie director,
at least — a perfectly fine fellow; and
all this comes through as a kind of
ambivalence.

Videodrome, for instance, seems
decidedly pro-human at first, even

12 Twilight Zone

movie progresses, and our tv producer
suffers ever more dire symptoms from
his now near-total dependence on his
favorite show. Try and imagine, for
example, what would happen if,
right now, in the comfort of your
armchair, your solar plexus
conveniently opened up and you
were able to slip your arm into your
bowels up to your elbow. What
would your hand look like when it
emerged? Covered with slimy gick?
Sure. Dripping goo? Of course. But
really, what's the point of imagining?
Face it, the movie does much better
than you possibly could.

Of course, by now we are all
shaking our heads like sixty, we and
Cronenberg. What awful stuff all this
tv watching has done to our antihero!

And how cynical everyone who works
in the industry must be. And what
about this decadent genius — a
character called "Professor Brian
O'Blivion," reportedly inspired by
Marshall McLuhan — who honestly
believes, among other patently
immoral things, that appearing on tv
talk shows is the same as being alive,
if not better? What are we to make of
all these awful influences? Land sakes,
if we know what's good for us we'll
unplug all our sets and give them to
the Salvation Army for tax credit.

But wait — what's this
Cronenberg's saying toward the end
of the movie? Why do we find our
heads shaking slower and slower? Is it
possible we are to approve of
Professor O'Blivion after all? That he
may be, like McLuhan, something of
a smartass, but that he really is, deep
down inside, a sweetie with a heart of
gold and that he's doing all these
disturbing things for our own good?
Yes, unless I have misviewed
Videodrome badly: Cronenberg does
want us to believe just that.

Well, okay, 1 can go along with
it. Not agree with it, perhaps, but
accept it without difficulty as a sort
of tricky propaganda device. God
knov^s, propaganda's a grand,
traditional use of the medium. Often
the message is the medium. And
though I suspect that this final flip in
the message may be technically weak,
it is an interesting experiment. No
problem.

Soon the fellow is enjoying phone conversations with the tv image of his latest
conquest (Deborah Harry), a "Dr. Ruth"-type sex advisor with an unexpiained
streak of masochism. Later his belly develops a weird vagina-like opening into
which his oppressors shove videocassettes.

"... wondering why his television set has developed varioose veins and a
severe bulging of the tube. " Victim of an advanced form of mind control,
Videodrome's small-time cable tv producer (played by James Woods) suffers a
series of erotic— and Increasingly violent— hallucinations.

though it rather disajpproves of their
goings-on. Its stance is one of alarm
at the sinister threat to mankind
posed by the purveyors of violent tv
"entertainment." What is this constant
exposure to increasingly brutal forms
of amusement doing to us, anyway?

Cronenberg shakes his head and
we shake ours with him as we watch
his antihero, a tv producer played by
James Woods, discover and gloat over
a mysterious underground tv show
called "Videodrome," which is being
broadcast not over the channels we
know, but between them. The
producer becomes more and more
convinced that this torture and snuff
show — for that is what "Videodrome"
is — is just vyhat the television public,
too jaded to be intrigued even by
Roman orgies, would take to their
hearts. Girls being whipped to death,
slow garrotings, a plethora of nasty
and convincing mutilations — what
more could the home viewer ask for?

Soon our antihero has become
completely addicted to "Videodrome."
Can't do without it. Must watch his
pirated tapes of it every night. But,
friends, his pleasure is not without its
drawbacks, for watching the program
has two really deleterious effects on
the man: (1) It makes him confused
about reality, to the extent of
wondering why his television set has
developed varicose veins and a severe
bulging of the tube. (2) It turns him
into a human VCR, a videocassette
recorder.

Now as stated in our thesis, none
of this is suggested or hinted at. It is
shown, ingeniously, in graphic detail,
and with numerous elaborations and
increasingly awful variations as the

Twilight Zone 13

SCREEN

. . part Navajo and part old bloodhound." One of the tribe of Mystics in
The Dark Crystal, who move siowiy, mutter prophetic things, and appear to
have something rather like The Force on their side.

The thing I cannot forgive providing the essential intelligence;

Videodrome for is yet another flip at Henson and Frank Oz (of Muppet

its end, a much more serious one, and fame) directed the action, and the

one so structurally incongruous that it supply lines were established and
really is inexcusable. protected by producer Gary Kurtz,

The whole movie, as stated seasoned veteran of Star Wars and

above, is mercilessly explicit, almost other spectacularly successful foray;
tediously insistent that you see The troops following them are legic

everything no matter how repulsive it the listing of them — the battalions (
may be or how technically difficult it special effects experts, costume
may be to deliver. Okay, again. Well designers, creators of sets and lighti
and good. A perfectly acceptabl| and God knows what — goes on anc

approach to filmmaking. But at the on forever, making even the credit

end of Videodrome we are led up to a roll call for E. T. seem tiny,
wonder, a marvel, the end result of So how did it go? How success

the movie's entire preoccupation, and, was the landing? Did they take the
to our amazement, we don't see what high ground? Has the occupation
happens! When the final kicker, the held?

visual event of visual events arrives. Well, yes and no. The first gre.

Cronenberg's camera suddenly turns flaw of the film, to me, is its almos

demure, blushingly shy. It averts its unrelenting lugubriousness. It is

lens; it even turns itself off. After thorough, solemn, heavily moral, a:

programming us to confidently expect gloomy. I know this is a tradition i

a clear, unblinking stare at all events, the genre of the fairy tale— Baba Y;

we are suddenly protected from of the cold Russian winters comes t

having so much as a glimpse of the mind— but it is not to my liking,

movie's ultimate horror. Not a peek. Gloom in portions by all means, at

Not a hint. Only blackness and The awful moments. But (and I freely

End. admit this is absolutely a matter of

That's not playing fair, Dave. personal taste) there should also be

The Dark Crystal is another kind
of experiment in total exposure, but
whereas Videodrome wishes us to
experience gory nightmares without
any shield. Crystal wants us to view,
directly and in clear focus, nothing
less than Fairyland.

It is, to say the least, a daring
and bold idea. Fairyland is a very
private place for all of us. Any
attempt to depict it risks becoming a
resented invasion, and a muffed
attempt to do so can result in a really
spectacular failure.

The Dark Crystal's Fairyland
invasion army is composed of some of
the best troops that could be
mustered. Brian FrOud, the English
illustrator, is the star creative general,
making all the basic maps and

made Crystal decided that if they did
not actually show the crowds, they'd
be cheating.

The population we do see in this
sparsely settled Fairyland is, by and
large, most interesting, and the most
interesting of all, of course, are the
villains. These are the nasty Skekses,
who look like vultures in Tudor
finery and dwell in a black, spiky
castle along with their beetlelike
warriors the Gaithim, and crystal
bats, and a number of sort-of rats.

All are quite well-realized, and when
a Skeksis dies ht; crumbles like an old
building in a most engaging manner.

The Mystics, are the best of the
good guys, being part Navajo and
part old bloodhound. Their way of
life is nicely suggested — a kind of
dreamy American Indian mishmash —
and the only problem I had with
them was why wasn't their tribe given
a Dunsanian name, as with the other
species?

Crystal gets into trouble with the
Gelflings, which are (what's left of
them — there are only two) as close to
human form as any creature gets in
the film, and are therefore (as
happens with Snow White and any
number of similar ventures) the most
unconvincing. C>ne odd blunder is
that our first view of the male
Gelfling shows him near stripped, and
for quite a long-held shot, so that, try
as we might to do otherwise, we
know without any doubt that we are
being introduced to a puppet. It's
particularly strange because
throughout the rest of the film we see
him clothed and thus more
convincing.

But the worst part about the
Gelflings is that they are an accurate
reflection on Bri.an Fraud's work,
which is mostly really swell stuff, but
which is at its v^eakest when he's
doing his wispier creatures. (I know
Faeries is a big bestseller — what can I
say?) And the Gelflings are decidedly
wispy.

However, that aside, there are
some really mar/elous things in the
movie. My favorite sequence takes
place in a swamp full of grand
inventions, both vegetable and animal,
including flying flowers and a lovable
swamp mother. It all worked so well
it made me wonder if the sequel to
Crystal might not be well advised to
skip the trappings of plot and present
itself as a travelogue. (Q

14 Twilight Zone

B ernard Herrman, the greatest
composer of film music in the
symphonic tradition, once
quipped that he would only be
"remembered for a few lousy movies."
A gentle man with a prickly facade,
Herrmann was perhaps indulging in
calculated understatement, yet his
remark does reflect the low state in
which film composers are often held
by the musical establishment. This
snobbery is especially unfortunate
— indeed, masochistic — given the
terrible difficulty contemporary
composers have marketing their work.
As composer Constant Lambert has
astutely observed, "Film music offers
the serious composer what has been
lacking since the eighteenth century
— a reasonable commercial outlet for
his activities, comparable to the
occasional' music which the greatest
classical composers did not despise to
write."

Actually, "occasional" music has
always been somewhat controversial,
and not always for reasons of
snobbery. The fundamental esthetic
question is whether music composed
expressly for an extra-musical medium
can retain its identity and emotional
power if wrenched from its original
context — whether it be a play, a
church service, or, in our own time, a
film. Certainly the prospect of
listening to a Herrmann film score as
a piece of "pure" music is altogether
desirous: to be sure, the music for
Psycho, a film most of us have seen,
is especially shudder)' because it
evokes the film; but the music for
Vertigo, which no one can see because
Hitchcock yanked it out of

circulation, is a sensuous and shivery
experience entirely on its own. The
music survives its original film context
because Herrmann was a great
composer: his best music doesn't
"accompany" a given film so much as
saturate and enhance it.

Herrmann's first break in film
music came, auspiciously enough,
when Orson Welles asked him to
compose the music for Citizen Kane
(1940), a film considered by such
critics as the late Dwight MacDonald
to be America's greatest. Herrmann
had already written radio music for
Welles's "Mercury Theater Playhouse,"
and when Welles decided to make the
move to cinerha he brought Herrmann
along. The prelude to Citizen Kane
opens with a ghostly variation on the
medieval death chant "Dies irae"
(quoted also by Berlioz, Liszt, and
Rachmaninoff), which immediately
bathes the film in a morose, sinister
atmosphere. A dramatic glissando for
the harp, one of Herrmann's favorite
instruments (the Twelve-Mile Reef
score features nine of them) introduces
the contrasting "Rosebud" motif for
strings, a bittersweet glimpse of
crushed idealism. At the end,

Herrmann brings back the "Dies irae"
theme in a solemn brass chorale, the
symphonic weight of which had not
been heard in movies since Prokofiev's
score for Eisenstein's Alexander
Nevsky. Utterly lacking in Herrmann's
score was the schmaltzy, swooning '
"big tune" approach to
movie music so widespread in
Hollywood.

Although large sections of Citizen
Kane contain mysterious, unsettling

music, Herrmann's first consistently
nightmarish score came four years
later in Hangover Square, John
Brahm's film about a psychotic,
murderous composer who sets fire to
a concert hall during a performance of
his own piano concerto. This piece,
Herrmann's Concerto Macabre, is a
genuine, full-bodied piano concerto
in the Gothic tradition of Liszt's
spectacularly grim Todtentanz for
Piano and Orchestra (described in
these'pages in the February, 1982
issue). Herrmann was the only
Hollywood composer to orchestrate
his own scores, and the results are
especially telling here: the somber
orchestration emphasizes the dark
sonorities of double basses (a
premonition of Psycho) and lower
brass, while the percussive piano
writing plunges down into the lowest
bass register. At the climax, we hear a
series of dramatic suspensions, a
favorite Herrmann device used
repeatedly in later scores to evoke
wrenching ambiguity and irresolution.
The ending has the mad pianist
finishing the concerto alone, deep in
the bass, the terrified orchestra having
long since fled in disarray.

Both the Citizen Kane suite and
the Hangover Square concerto are
available in a hard-to-find 1974 RCA
recording (The Classic Film Scores of
Bernard Herrmann, Charles Gerhardt,
National Philharmonic Orchestra,

RCA ARLl-0707, OP). It is
unfortunate that this stunningly
recorded disc (which also includes
White Witch Doctor and Beneath the
Twelve-Mile Reef) is out of print in
the U.S., for neither Hangover Square

..t

‘t

Twilight Zone 15

nor the more spectral portions of
Citizen Kane are available elsewhere.
(The British version, still in print, is
listed as RCA GL 43441.)

After Hangover Square,

Herrmann became increasingly
preoccupied with terror, suspense, and
fantasy. His early television credits
include music for The Alfred ^

Hitchcock Show, Kraft Suspense
Theater, and The Twilight Zone.
Beginning with Joseph L. Mankiewicz's
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) and
Robert Wise's The Day the Earth
Stood Still (1951), Herrmann turned
out an extraordinary series of scores
for fantasy, science fiction, and
suspense films.

Attractive excerpts from these
scores are available in three collections
recorded by Herrmann himself for
London's "Phase IV" recordings, a
series noted for its brilliantly close-up
but rather cold and unreverberan^
sound. The Mysterious Film World of
Bernard Herrmann (Bernard
Herrmann, National Philharmonic
Orchestra, London SPC 21137) opens
with the music for Cy Endfield's 1961
Mysterious Island. The prelude, which
suggests a stormy seascape, unleashes
massive modal chords which continue
to cut into the following "Balloon"
sequence. We are then treated to
musical portraits of three of Ray
Harryhausen's celebrated oversized
critters: "The Giant Crab," "The
Giant Bee," and "The Giant Bird." An
even more impressive score is the
music for Don Chaffey's 1933 Jason
and the Argonauts, which eliminates
strings and uses brass, wind, and
percussion to create an austere,
muscular sound of tremendous weight
and presence.

Bernard Herrmann Conducts
(London Philharmonic and National
Philharmonic Orchestras, London SPC
2177) offers five scenes from
Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451 (1966).

With his usual fondness for unusual
orchestration, Herrmann uses a
simple, pared-down ensemble of
strings, harp, and percussion to create
a sound far removed from the
"futuristic" electronic gimmickry of
most science fiction films. In fact,
Fahrenheit 451 is one of Herrmann's
most mysterious and beautiful scores,
especially the prelude, with its
bewitching echoes of the "Neptune"
finale of Holst's The Planets, and the
book-burning scene, with its leaping.

flame-like harp arpeggios.

The most complete overall
introduction to Herrmann is provided
on a recording of re-releases simply
entitled Bernard Herrmann (London
SPC 21151), a record featuring short,
composer-conducted excerpts from
eleven scores (including Citizen Kane
and Jason and the Argonauts). One
of the most attractive snippets here
is the overture to The Seventh
Voyage of Sinbad (1958), Herrmann's
Scheherezade, with its Arabian Nights
orientalisms. Another is the "Atlantis"
sequence from Journey to the Center
of the Earth (1959), ingeniously scored
for an orchestra without strings but
with no less than five organs. This
quiet, eerie music is pure atmosphere,
color, and goose pimples.

The most important items on the
record, however, are the excerpts
from Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958),

North by Northwest (1959), and
Psycho (1960), the most enduring
fruits of the greatest director/
composer collaboration since
Eisenstein/ Prokofiev. The shortest of
these is the kinetic overture to North
by Northwest, which opens with the
ominous roar of MGM's Leo the Lion
and builds to what Herrmann called a
musical depiction of "the crazy dance
about to take place between Cary
Grant and the world." The entire
score is available on a sensational
digital British recording North by
Northwest, (Laurie Johnson, London
Studio Symphony Orchestra, Unicorn-
Kanchana, DKP 9000).

Even more gripping is the music
for Psycho, Herrmann's most horrific
score and surely his most
revolutionary. In previous scores,
Herrmann moved away from surface
glitter and extraneous Hollywood "big
tunes." In Psycho, Herrmann
abandoned melody almost entirely,
relying on slashing, dissonant chords,
athematic atmosphere sequences, and
a violent rhythmic pulse, devices •
which effectively fill the audience with
unease even when there is nothing
overtly disturbing on the screen. From
the first knife-like chords in the title
sequence to the final bleak ninth
chord. Psycho gives us Herrmann's art
stripped to its stark essentials. The
orchestra, for example, consists of
strings alone, in order, as Herrmann
put it, to "complement the black and
white photography of the film with a
black and white sound."

The most famous sequence is the
gruesome shower scene, which
Hitchcock originally wanted to film
with no music at all, and which
became, at Herrmann's insistence, an
unforgettable fusion of music and
action. The violently screeching string
chords are a dasiiic example of
Herrmann's ability to cut to the
essence of a scene and translate it
unerringly into sound. But the quiet
music is also masterly, as in the
strange tremolos and harmonics in the
"Discovery" sequence. Herrmann once
stated that film music is "the
connecting link between screen and
audience, reaching out and enveloping
all in one single experience." In
Psycho, the most "enveloping" of all
his scores, he reaches out to grab us
by the throat. This is quite simply the
most unforgettable horror music in
film history.

Amazingly, the complete Psycho
was not recorded until 1975, and even
that version is out of print (Psycho,
Bernard Herrmann, National
Philharmonic Orchestra, Unicorn
RHS 336). Fortunately, Herrmann
reconstructed a fourteen-minute
"Narrative for Oi'chestra" based on
the score in 1968, which is available
on the Bernard Herrmann record and
presented in a valuable anthology of
Hitchcock scores which includes music
from Mamie, North by Northwest,
Vertigo, and The Trouble with Harry
(Music from the Great Movie
Thrillers, Bernard Herrmann, London
Philharmonic Orc;hestra, London
SP 44126).

Three episodes from Vertigo are
available on this record, but it is
better, as always, to get the complete
music: Herrmann s art is organic
rather than episodic, with motifs
accruing new meanings and nuances
each time they recur. It is now
possible to hear the entire Vertigo
score from the original soundtrack on
a newly pressed, superbly recorded
Mercury "Golden Imports" release
(Vertigo, Muir Mjithieson, Sinfonia of
London, Mercury SRI 75117). This
record is well worth having: if Psycho
is Herrmann's most economical score.
Vertigo is his mo;3t expansive, with a
terrifying preview of Psycho in the
"Rooftop," "Tower," and "Nightmare"
sequences and the most passionate,
haunting love music Herrmann was
ever to write in the love scenes.
Indeed, Vertigo has the widest

16 Twilight Zone

• *.' / 'If «

■' 4 A If Ilk ,

p tr iiib 'E il- f- '

emotional and technical range of any
Herrmann score.

Herrmann broke virith Hitchcock
after Mamie (1964) because the studio
began demanding the very hit-parade
style of material Herrmann had
devoted his career to opposing. He
experienced a slight decline in the late
sixties, then came back with an
awkward start in the early seventies.
His scores for Alastair Reid's The
Night Digger (1970) and Brian de
Palma's Sisters (1972) make both films
seem more frightening than they
actually are, and his shivery score for
It's Alive (1974) is surely the most
bizarre coupling of a distinguished
score with a B-movie (albeit a trashily
effective one) in movie history.

But 1975, the last year of
Herrmann's life, saw the composition
of two of his strongest works.
Obsession, his second de Palma score,
looks back to "Vertigo as if in a
dream, using a spectral chorus to
evoke some of the motifs and moods
of the earlier film. Far from a

mechanical reworking of familiar
material. Obsession is one of
Herrmann's most haunting, romantic
scores.

His last work. Taxi Driver, is,
like the Martin Scorcese film itself, a
masterpiece: its weirdly distorted blues
riffs imbue Herrmann's characteristic
harmonies with an energy that builds
and finally explodes into the
frightening percussion crashes of the
film's brutal climax. Herrmann's best
work always evoked terror and
menace, and Taxi Driver is a fitting,
if tragically premature finale. His
death at the age of sixty-five was a
sad blow to the worlds of both music
and film.

In the evolution of twentieth-
century music. Bernard Herrmann was
not an especially radical or innovative
composer. Unlike Ives and Debussy,
whose works he loved and
championed as a conductor, he did
not significantly advance the language
of music. Like Brahms, he was a
synthesizer, not an innovator. His

achievement was to incorporate
established techniques of twentieth-
century symphonic music into film
scores of unsurpassed intelligence and
poetry. Sometimes these techniques
are fiercely dissonant (the influence of
Bartok throbs in the background of
Psycho, as Varese perhaps does in
Jason and the Argonauts); sometimes,
as in the film scores of Erich
Korngold, they are neo-romantic —
indeed, almost Wagnerian. But
Herrmann always used them in an
utterly personal way: every Herrmann
score is unmistakably by Herrmann.

Unlike Vaughan Williams,
Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and Walton,
who wrote distinguished film music
on an occasional basis, Herrmann
made his mark primarily in his work
for film. He was not the first great
composer who wrote for film but
rather the first great film composer, a
unique and important category in the
music of our time. As we shall see in
future columns, he was by no means
the last. iB

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Nostalgia

Walking with Zombies
and Other Saturday
Afternoon Pastimes

by Ron Goulart

A recent PBS retrospective of
classic horror movies left
me with the unsettling
realization that I'd done the better
part of my initial spook-film watching
during the wrong decade entirely. The
movies that were featured — usually
sandwiched between programs rich
with Alistair Cooke's erudite fatuities
or Pavarotti's crystal-shattering arias —
seemed to be mostly from the 1930s:
films such as Frankenstein, Dracula,
and The Bride of Frankenstein. While
1 did begin toddling into movie
palaces toward the tail end of the
thirties, my most serious and
dedicated moviegoing took place in
the forties. I'll be devoting my space
this issue to the horror movies of that
decade and to putting forth, partly as
an act of cultural self-defense, my
own list of classics.

A word, first, about ideal viewing
conditions for the supernatural gems of
this period. I first saw most of them in
one or another of the half-dozen movie
houses in the sleepy, ivy-covered
California college town where I grew
to manhood. On Saturday and
Sunday afternoons I could be found
at our nearest cinema palace, which
was called the Rivoli. It was — in
memory, at least — an immense place,
and presided over by a manager who

wore a tuxedo during every vyaking
hour of his life. Several odors fought
for dominance, including those of hot
buttered popcorn, the strong soap
they used to disinfect the bathrooms,
and the scent of approaching puberty
(a heady mixture that included
sizable portions of perspiration and
flatulence). Seen under these
conditions while hunkered in the vast
surrounding darkness, almost any
occult movie was sure to have a
profound effect on me. But I'll try to
sort the wheat from the chaff and
suggest which ones still look okay on
the tiny screen of a television set.

One of the systems we used to
rate horror films of the era was based
on how easy the monsters were to
imitate during the hike home from the
theater and in the school yard the
following week. The Frankenstein '
monster ranked high, as did the Wolf
Man, the Mummy, and any and all
zombies. Personally I liked to do Bela
Lugosi as Ygor, the demented sheep-
herder who took to palling around
with the Frankenstein monster. Lugosi
played the role twice, in The Son of
Frankenstein (1939) and The Ghost of
Frankenstein (1942). Ygor had
survived a completely justified
hanging, and it caused him to walk
around in a very odd manner with

his head cocked far to one side. No
matter who was emoting, even such
horror heavyweights as Basil
Rathbone, Lionel Atwill, and Cedric
Hardwicke, all Lugosi had to do was
come shuffling in and do his Ygor
shtick to completely steal the scene.
I've long nursed the theory that
Lugosi was one of the great
comedians of the movies, but won't
go into an elaboration here.

The Mumn-iy first surfaced in a
1932 film of that title, a slow heavy
movie with Boris Karloff in the title
role. But he was mostly seen in
civvies in the film, behaving like a
beardless Sveng.jli. The really
effective and fu:ri-to-impersonate
Mummy didn't come along until 1940
in Universal's The Mummy's Fland.
Tom Tyler, who'd been a cowboy
herb throughout the 1930s and who'd
be Captain Marvel in the serials, was
the first to play the new, improved
Mummy. Wrapped up in what looked
like hundreds of yards of second-hand
gauze and appearing about as
presentable as a package sent Third
Class, Tyler limped and lurched
across the screen. He strangled tomb-
defilers and carried off nightgowned
damsels with admirable disheveled
aplomb. The Mummy's Hand was an
enjoyable film (f saw it again just last

18 Twilight Zone

the fact that he was nowhere near to
being the actor his father was. One
of his better performance was in The
Wolf Man (1941). Like earlier
lycanthrope films (such as 1935's
Werewolf of London), the victim of
the blight in this effort didn't turn
into a full-fledged down-on-all-fours
wolf. Rather, he became incredibly
shaggy and snarled a lot. Another
product of the Universal studios. The
Wolf Man had an impressive cast that
included Claude Rains, Ralph
Bellamy, and Evelyn Ankers (who
must be tied with Zucco for the
greatest number of appearances in
1940s chillers). Bela Lugosi appears
briefly as the source of the werewolf
virus, and Maria Ouspenskaya
delivers what has to be the
quintessential Old Gypsy Fortune-
Teller performance. The best parts of
the picture occur on nights of a full
moon when poor Chaney, writhing in
torment, is slowly transformed into a
snarling wolfman. Any kid could
easily identify with a guy who tore
up his room, smashed windows, went
careening around the neighborhood
doing mischief, and came dragging
home long after curfew. What we
didn't much care for was his stern
father (played by Claude Rains in his
best sympathetic martinet style)
criticizing him all the time, and
finally beating him to death on the
fog-ridden moors with a silver-headed
cane. That cane looked a lot more
dangerous than .the traditional razor
strap or hickory rod. Eventually, as is
often the case, the box office proved
stronger than death, and Chaney
came back to life to play the Wolf
Man for several more go-rounds.

He was also given the
opportunity to portray some of
Universal's stock creatures. He
donned the lift shoes and the grim
makeup to be the monster in The
Ghost of Frankenstein (1942). Ralph
Bellamy was in this one, too, along
with the ubiquitous Evelyn Ankers.

The picture was stolen, as previously
mentioned, by Lugosi as the dippy
shepherd. Nineteen forty-three found
Chaney haunting the Southern bayous
as Dracula in Son of Dracula. Don't
ask me who played the title role, *
since the son never rises in this. The
put-upon girl is — which should come
as no surprise by now— blond Evelyn
Ankers. The evil lady was played by

Above: 'The really effective and fun-
to-Impersonate Mummy." Tom Tyler
wore the sheets in The Mummy's
Hand (1940).

Left: "The basic plat was swiped from
'Jane Eyre.' " Long iDefore Club Med,
Vol Lewton’s / Walked with a Zombie
(1943) offered glimpses of the
complete Caribbean experience.

week) and has a strong B-movie cast.
Cecil Kellaway shines as a tipsy stage
magician who is persuaded to
finance an expedition to find a lost
tomb. The dedicated archaeologist is
played by Dick Foran, another
cowboy actor and a singing one
at that, who did most of his
archaeological work wearing a white
suit and a dancemari's straw hat.

There are not one but two evil priests
to be seen. One is flayed in high
style by Eduardo Ciannelli (the same
fellow who gave Cary Grant and his
sidekicks such a bad time in Gunga
Din) and the other by the formidable
George Zucco. It's my impression that
Zucco (who was also the first to play
Professor Moriarty in the Rathbone-
Bruce Sherlock Holmes series) was in
every single horror movie of the
forties. He wears a lez in this one
and looks like a crazed Shriner.

There were several more Mummy
movies made early in the decade, all
with Lon Chaney, Jr. under the
wrappings, but none equaled this one.

Certainly no actor of that decade
was more put upon than Lon
Chaney, Jr. He had curses heaped
upon him, electricity shot into him,
vampires and werewolves nibbling at
him. He survived it all and kept
plodding along, almost able to hide

Louise Albritton in a black wig that
looked left over from a road-show
production of Antony and Cleopatra.
My favorite bit in this one occurs
when the good guys spell the name
Chaney is using backwards and get
an inkling of who he really might be.
He's been calling himself Count Alucard.

In the forties, as I moved from
cherubic little tyke to acned teen, I
paid little attention to who produced
or directed the movies I was
consuming. Thus it wasn't until some
years later that I became aware that
several of my favorite scary movies
of the period had been produced by
Val Lewton and directed, for the
most part, by Jacques Tourneur.

From 1942 through 1946 Lewton,
working with his own production unit
at RKO, turned out nine horror
films, including Cat People, I Walked
with a Zombie, The Leopard Man,

Isle of the Dead, and The Body
Snatcher. At the time, I preferred Cat
People, but now 1 find / Walked with
a Zombie to be the best of the lot.
Too bad, in a way, because it's
difficult to have a serious discussion
about a film with a title like that.
There isn't much out-and-out horror
in it^ but it is a very unsettling film. -
The scene wherein Frances Dee, as
the hired nurse, walks Tom Conway's
zombie wife through the windswept
jungle to a voodoo meeting is still
highly effective. And there is also a
scene in which all that happens is
that calypso singer Sir Lancelot
slowly walks toward Dee as she sits
at an outdoor cafe table and sings a
song to her about the family she is
working for. The scene manages to
be quietly chilling. As Lewton
admitted, the basic plot was swiped
from fane Eyre, but he and Tourneur
created something much beyond just
another Gothic.

A few months ago in these
pages, when I reviewed the sorry
remake of Cat People, I extolled the
virtues of Lewton and company.

They were able to create terror and
unease without ever showing us a
disemboweled corpse or a naked girl
being sliced up by a chainsaw. As
time goes by their achievements
seem increasingly impressive.

On my honor roll of 1940s
horror classics I also make room for
movies that are masterpieces of god-
awfulness. Among the best in this

Twilight Zone 19

genre are two Bela Lugosi epics.

Devil Bat (1941) and Voodoo Man
(1941). Both have much to commend
them, but I am somewhat fonder of
Voodoo Man. Besides Lugosi, the
picture also stars John Carradine and
George Zucco. A mad doctor, Lugosi
is waylaying young women and using
them in experiments designed to
return his living-dead wife to normal.
In-order to summon girls, he has
Zucco, who in everyday life seems to
run the local gas station, drop over
to his creepy mansion. Once there
Zucco dons a black robe and a silly
hat and starts babbling gibberish.

This voodoo ritual is powerful
enough to cause young women to
hop out of their beds clad in filmy
nightdresses and come marching ^to
the mansion. Whenever I have
downcast moments and think I may
be prostituting my talent, I have but
to think of Zucco, an actor trained
on the British stage, chanting away in
his voodoo robe. It gives me the
strength to go on.

In Devil Bat Lugosi is also a mad
doctor. He is so inventive that he
creates not only gigantic killer bats
but an after-shave lotion that attracts
them. The scenes in which Lugosi
passes out free samples of the lotion
to his intended victims are the high
points of the movie.

Another staple of the forties
was the horror comedy. Looking
backward, I suspect this subspecies
had an even more profound effect
on me than the more somber films
mentioned above, and that it quite
probably had a mutagenic effect on
my creative faculties. To this day I
can't seem to write a completely
serious ghost or horror tale.

My favorite came along right at
the start of the decade — Bob Hope's
Ghost Breakers (1940). Directed by
George Marshall from a script by
Walter DeLeon, this film was the
second of three that teamed Hope
with Paulette Goddard. The first. The
Cat and the Canary (1939), was also
a horror comedy, and Hope considers
it "the turning point of my movie
career." It was, he says, "an
A-picture tailored for me. Before that,
I was wearing other actors' castoffs."
The Cat and the Canary, even

though it included Gale Sondergaard
and George Zucco in the cast, is not
as good as Ghost Breakers. Both
Hope and Goddard are much more at
ease in their second film, and Hope
has Willie Best as his sidekick.
Although Best has been criticized by
some critics for his portrayals of the
stereotyped black, he was an
exceptional comic actor. In this
picture he is especially good in a
dockside sequence where he's trying
to communicate with Hope, who
happens to be locked inside a steamer
trunk. A drunk (played by Jack
Norton, who seldom played anything
else on the screen) totters along and
assumes that Best is a ventriloquist.
Ghost Breakers is an Old Dark House
movie at heart, with a gloomy castle
on an island off Cuba serving as the
house. The sequences in the shadowy
castle, complete with a ghost, a
zombie, and a crypt containing a
hidden treasure, manage to be scary
and funny at the same time.

Marshall, by the way, also directed a
dreary remake of this. It was a
Martin and Lewis vehicle called
Scared Stiff (1953).

Less subtle than the Hope-
Goddard movies was Hold That
Ghost (1941), an Abbott and Costello
epic. In this one they inherit a
seemingly haunted inn that once
belonged to a defunct gangster. They
spend a stormy night along with Joan
Davis, Richard Carlson, and the ever-
present Evelyn Ankers. When this
picture was first released, I was of
the opinion that Abbott and Costello,
along with the Three Stooges, were
among the funniest fellows on the
face of the earth. Having matured
some in the intervening four-plus
decades, I no longer even chuckle
over the Stooges' antics, but I must
confess I still like Abbott and
Costello. In Hold That Ghost it's
Costello, the more likable of the two
and the one kids always identify
with, who does all the scared stiff
routines that somebody like Willie
Best was noted for. A much better
picture and the high point of A&C's
career was the horror comedy Abbott
and Costello Meet Frankenstein
(1948). In this Lugosi returns for his
final portrayal of Dracula and

"Personally, I liked to do Ygor. " Bela
Lugosi and Lon Chaney, Jr. starred in
The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942).

Chaney gives his farewell performance
as the Wolf Man.

Quite possit'ly more horror
comedies were made in the 1940s
than any other time before or since.
Just about everybody made at least
one. The Bower;^ Boys made several,
including Spooks Run Wild (1941) —
with Bela Lugosi and a newcomer
named Ava Gardner — and Spook
Busters (1946). One of the Blondie
series, Blondie Has Servant Trouble
(1940), puts Penny Singleton and
Arthur Lake into a haunted mansion.
Harold Peary, then famous on the
radio, did Gildersleeve's Ghost in
1944. This RKO comedy, which I
find myself enjoying every time I see
it, contains an invisible girl, a mad
doctor, a runaway gorilla, and two
ghosts — all crammed into a running
time of only sixty-four minutes. The
director was Goi'don Douglas, who
went on to direct Them and In Like
Flint.

Another Douglas effort was
Zombies on Broadway (1945). This is
a dopey movie, but I can't help liking
it. The stars are a comedy team
created just for the movies, RKO's
answer to Abboi:t and Costello.
Somehow, though, Wally Brown and
Alan Carney never caught on. In
Zombies on Broadway, Brown, the
tall thin one, and Carney, the short
fat one, are sent to the Caribbean to
find a real zombie to be used in a
nightclub show in Manhattan. Since
the film was shot at RKO, where 1
Walked with a Zombie had been
made a couple of years earlier, you
get the impression the comics have
landed on the same island that
Frances Dee went to. Bela Lugosi is
on hand, turning out first-rate
zombies in his w'alled castle. Also to
be seen are Sir Lancelot, doing more
ominous calypso tunes, and a black
actor named Darby Jones. Jones,
whose entire scnjen career apparently
consists of two credits, is the chief
zombie. He was also the zombie in
the Lewton film.

As I near tbie finish line on this
piece, I realize I haven't covered half
of the 1940s horror comedies and not
one of the invisible man films. Give
me a few months and maybe I'll try
again. IS

20 Twilight Zone

Fantasy Acrostic # 1

Peter Cannon

lE 4 |Y 5 iHe IB 7

I pa i i vio jsii In: Ihi3 Iyi 4 luis

|y38^^^^1W39|u40 141

|h57 |e58 |o59 |u60

|c25 |q27 |f28 j A29 |k30 E31 B32 1n33 lw34 |q35 I

|s43 |a44 1X45 | N4p |r47 |m 48 lo49 {ibO C51 l A52 |o33 Y54 l

|Y61 iRd2 |q63 |lb4 | Xfeo 167 I FbS |Be9 I E70 lo?! 1 y72 | N73 1074 I

G 16 I 117 I W 18 |K 19

Q35 1136 ^^|c37

Here's a puzzle for aficionados of weird tales and Weird Tales.
From the clues listed below, guess the words they define and write
the answers over the numbered dashes. Then transfer each letter to
the square with the same number in the crossword-type grid. Read-
ing from left to right, the completed grid will spell out a key quota-
tion from a well-known work of fantasy. Black squares separate the

A. Small thin sponge cake

29 44 110 183 52 145 tb? 20 126 117

B. The Castle of (granddaddy of gothic novels)

177 32 69 98 119 7 132

C. Made null; excreted

individual words. (Some words, therefore, are broken off at the
right edge of the grid and continue at the left, one line below, just as
on a printed page.)

Note: The first letters of each answer, re.ad in order, (29 — 177 — 94
etc.), provide the author's name and the title of the work. (Answers
appear on page 47.)

N. One who transmutes base metals into gold

~73 W 137 13 3 Tbi 46 1.75 23

O. Adolphe de Castro story (2 wds. after "The"; see November
1928 issue of Weird Tales); final exam

94 51 79 129 25 104

179 59 106 85 49 71 89 53

D. Phantom; ideal ("It was the ghoulish shade of decay, antiquity,

and desolution; the putrid, dripping of unwholesome

revelation.")

lio ISo Im l 82 IT

E. Conan the (Hint: not "Barbarian," not "Conqueror")

Ho IW ~i 5^ 1s" 1o“ ir TloT l49

F. English poet and dramatist (The Fair Penitent), poet laureate
and first modem editor of Shakespeare (1674-1718)

11 “ ~W “ 90 ” ItT

G. Achieve; reach

166 16 80 184 37 97

H. Bare-knuckle combat; means of fighting in Barlow's "The Battle
That Ended the Century"

^87 “42 b~ IH HI ~82~ 'H I47 H~ 142 '

I. Dyed; colored

88 12 115 157 41 64

J. Brain trust (2 wds.), e.g. Hudson Institute

P. American bookman and poet (The He.'maphrodite); protege of
Hart Crane (1887-1976); also, what — literally — philanthropists
do (2 wds.)

135 143 181 75 8 188 146

Q. Salve; unguent

27 156 35 74 127 9 63 168

R. A crowning ornament or detail (Arch.); ornamental knob on
lamp top. ("The vacant church was in a state of great decrep-
itude. Some of the high stone buttresses had fallen, and several

delicate s lay half lost among tfie brown, neglected

weeds and grasses.")

144 62 161 105 136 47

S. Murder weapon preferred by some in Texas (2 wds.)

11 125 141 122 43 81 108 158

T. American stained-glass artist (1848-1933)

1F 148“ IH TsT In IH lo”

U. Witches' holiday

40 76 15 100 83 26 165 186 60

V. "The Fall of the House of "

172 17 - 93 109 36 124 153 87 138

K. British horror writer (1877-1918) specializing in sea tales; see April
1982 issue of Twilight Zone

178 139 56 86 10

170 116 30 185 160 96 19

L. Weird, eerie, ("It had been an thing — no wonder sen-

sitive students shudder at the Puritan age in Massachusetts.")

W. Ancient Roman porker (2 wds.)

78 159 39 18 22 99 34 114

X. One of "an unobtrusive but very ancient people, more
numerous formerly than they are today."

55 77 180 189 103 151 67 2

M. Abstention from sexual intercourse; purity

176 66 45 134 21 1

Y. Corrupt; unsound, unhealthy

102 24 118 130 163 48 169 152

14 154 173 54 5 72 121 38 111 61 91 Q

22 Twilight Zone

He's even supplied his own blurb;

SHORT-SHORT

SPEAKING OF
CONTESTS . .

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A
WRITER FORGETS A PLOT, A
CONFLICT, A CLIMAX, AND A
RESOLUTION? YOU GET . . .

THE STORY THAT NEVER WAS

The old man in the bar
slumped over in his booth
and threw up on the floor.

My wife turned away.

It's funny, because only thir-
ty minutes ago we were in the
ballpark watching the Dodg-
ers, and three hours before
that we were making love.

It was just a place to stop for
a cold brew . . . but we didn't
belong there.

So we left.

Twilight Zone's Second Annual
Short Story Contest is now over — the
three winners appeared in our previous
issue— and our Third is now under
way (see announcement, page 48). But
we wouldn't want to close our books
on last year's competition without
reprinting what was undoubtedly the
strangest entry of all, submitted by
Bill Devoe of Long Beach, California,
who describes it as "something I spewed
out between Major L,eague Ideas— just
my comment on story writing in
general. Ya know, every story I've ever
read or written, or any story ever writ-
ten, always has something big happen,
some sort of tension or event that peo-
ple remember. I don't know, maybe
I'm nuts."

Fans of Lord Bulwer-Lytton's
ghostly classic "The Haunted and the
Haunters" (and though we are not
among them, H.P. Lovecraft and
Montague Summers were) will be un-
happy to hear of a new writing compe-
tition recently reported in the New
York Times:

Hunt On Nationwide
For Wretched Writers

SAN JOSE, Calif., Jan 29 (AP)-A
search is on for the nation's most
wretched writers.

English professors at San Jose State
University have announced that the
Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest,
which is in its second year, has been
opened to the public for the first
time.

The contest seeks the opening sen-
tence to the worst of all. possible
no'ijels. All entries must be written by
the entrant and previously un-
published.

The contest was inspired by Ed-
ward Bulwer-Lytton, a writer of the
early 19th century, who began his
novel "Paul Clifford" this way; "It
was a dark and stormy night; the rain
fell in torrents— except at occasional
intervals, when it was checked by a
violent gust of wind which swept up
the streets (for it is in London that
our scene lies), rattling along the
house-tops and fiercely agitating
against the scanty flame of the lamps
that struggled against the darkness."

There's probably
no cause for
alarm, but writer
George R.R. Martin
("Remembering Melody,
TZ April '81)
swears he saw the
above sign while
attending a recent
sf convention in
Dallas. Note: Diners
at Tingles should
do well on clue A
of this issue's TZ
Quiz, page 22.

Yes, we know. You used to have a Floating Globes, for $100.) and The Dead Zone ("A heavily read

fabulous collection of Archie comics So just make sure your mother copy with some minor damp-staining

and an entire run of Justice League of doesn't get her hands on this issue of along the bottom edge") for $225.

America, along with a genuine Space Twilight Zone, because someday you Finally, the recent catalogue of a cer-

Patrol glow-in-the-dark decoder belt may be able to use it as the down pay- tain Texas autograph house lists a

and a ten-tools-in-one Rin Tin Tin ment on your country home (if the Stephen King signature for $17.50. The

Desert Survival Kit, and one day your paper doesn't turn to dust first). Our item reads, "Bank check made out to
mother threw them out. And now inclusion of The Raft — a piece of prime him and signed on verso. Dated Dec.
those things are worth a fortune. (Ac- Kingiana — makes the issue even morer 28, 1981. Fine, dark signature." (Well,
cording to Jeff Rovin's Science Fiction valuable; a New York rare book dealer what kind did they expect?)

Collector's Catalog, a Big Little Book has just offered a first edition of Carrie

called Flash Gordon and the Monsters ("Fine in d/j with very minor rubbing") TZ note: The catalogue also lists,

of Mongo is going for $80 today and for $100, and another dealer is offering for the same price, a genuine Rod Serling
another. Buck Rogers in the City of bound review copies of Cujo for $135 signature.

Twilight Zone 23

ETC.

Physician-tumed-filmmaker George
Miller, director of the segment based
on "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," is
used to vast spaces— his 1982 The
Road Warrior, probably the supreme
action movie of the last ten years, is
set amid an arid Australian landscape
stretching for miles in every direction
. —but Twilight Zone has forced hifti to
concentrate his energies. He regards
his work on the film as an homage to
Rod Serling, whom he credits with
having been "consistently able to do
more with less."

TZ MOVIE UPDATE:

From Down Under
to ‘20,000 Feet’
by Robert Martin

George Miller has come a long way
from Chinchilla, the tiny Australian town
where he was born. And while Mad Max
and its sequel The Road Warrior are
solid evidence of his filmmaking talent,
there's a good deal of fortuity involved
in the combination of circumstances
that brought him to Steven Spielberg's
Twilight Zone project.

For instance, it was Miller's good for-
tune to have a twin brother. All through
medical school at the University of New
South Wales, Miller would spend his time
at the local movie theater, relying upon
his med student brother to attend lec-
tures and take detailed notes. Later his
brother entered and won a film compe-
tition, and won free attendance at a
month-iong summer film workshop. Lucki-
ly, Miller was able to convince the work-
shop's administrators that he should be
allowed to attend as well, and— another
stroke of luck— it was there that he met
Byron Kennedy, who would later pro-
duce both Mad Max films.

His involvement in The Twilight Zone
came about through a similar happy co-
incidence. In early '82, Miller was in Holly-

wood in preparation for the U.S. release
of The Road Warrior, when he was in-
vited to visit Spielberg's offices. "They
were having a meeting to discuss The
Twilight Zone," recalls Miller. "I remem-
ber Steven was there, Kathy Kennedy,
and a few others, and they invited me
to sit down. Up to that time, it had been
planned to do three stories, and now
they'd decided to do a fourth. 'Why
don't you do one?' someone said. I
wasn't sure they weren't having me on
at the time."

Miller is pleased to be a part of the
Twilight Zone revival. "We had the series
in Australia, you know, and it was re-
garded as almost a textbook for doing
film on a limited budget," he says. "There
was a beautifully understated way of do-
ing things, like suggesting an entire vast
audience by showing certain individuals,
and perhaps a row of hands applauding."

Richard Donntrr, the director of the
tv version of "Nightmare at 20,000
Feet," recalled that episode (in TZ's July
'81 issue) as a tactical nightmare, direct-
ing a stuntman on a full-sized mock-up
of an airplane's wing amid artificial light-
ning, wind, and rain. Miller responds with
laughter at our mention of Donner's prob-
lems. "It's funny that you mention that,"
he says, "because, shortly after we

'NIGHTMARE' REVISITED . . .

With shooting completed, the four-
part Steven Spielberg-John Landis co-
production of The Twilight Zone is now
being readied for a late June release.

Spielberg's modus operand! is to
keep everyone in suspense until a
movie opens, and The Twilight Zone
was no exception, with guards posted
at the gates or around the perimeter of
the sets during shooting (though who
could argue with a man who, along
with George Lucas, has produced five
of the largest-grossing motion pictures
of all time?).

Despite the secrecy, however,
we've managed to assemble some on-
location shots of what promises to be
one of this summer's most talked-about
films. In our previous issue we gave
you a peek at director Joe Dante's seg-
ment, the second to be filmed, adapted
by veteran TZ scriptwriter Richard
Matheson from Jerome Bixby's horror
tale "It's a Good Life," in which an
isolated rural town is terrorized by an
innocent-looking little boy with awe-
some supernatural powers. Originally
adapted by Rod Serling for the Twi-
light Zone tv series, the story was one
of the highlights of the 1961 season.

Matheson has also worked on the
script for the third segment filmed, this

time based on one of his own Twilight
Zone episodes, the celebrated "Night-
mare at 20,000 Feet," in which an air-
line passenger just recovering from a
nervous breakdown comes face to face
with a creature out of modern legend
— a monstrous airplane-wrecking grem-
lin. In the original production, tele-
vised in 1963, the harried hero (whom
all the other passengers believe to be
insane) was played by a pre-Star Trek
William Shatner. The new version, dir-
ected by Australia's George Miller (The
Road Warrior), features Tony Awi^rd-
winner John Lithgow in the role-^ and,
along for the ride, our own Associate
Publisher, Carol Serling, as one of the
passengers. She reports that her first
acting assignment was anything but
glanfcrous:

"As a rule, working on or in a
film and waiting interminable hours for
your bit has to be the definite dull do-
main. Unless you happen to be the
star, with your own separate trailer
stocked with a good library and a re-
frigerator full of esoteric food, it really
is a bore." Nonetheless, she says,
"watching Steven direct his part of the
movie was an education and a delight,
and I also enjoyed working with Miller
—especially the chance to look over

the story-boards before any of the
cameras rolled." Thanks to her associa-
tion with the production, on which she
served as project consultant, we hope
to bring you several of these story-
boards in our next issue, along with
some special-effects drawings.

Broadway actor John Lithgow, who
played murderous villains in Brian
DePalma’s Obsession and Blow-Out
and a towering transsexual in
The World According to Garp,
discovers a monster on the wing of
an airplane In the segment based on
"Nightmare at 20.000 Feet."

24 Twilight Zone

finished shooting, someone gave me a
book colied The Twilight Zone Com-
panion. and of course I immediately
looked up 'Nightmare at- 20,000 Feet.'
There were Richard Donner's words, de-
scribing his experience— and it was
exactly what I'd just gone through!"

The film itself will differ in several
respects from the Donner versbn, partic-
ularly since Miller's script leans more
toward Matheson's origirral short-story
treatment than Mattieson's own tele-
visbn script did. "For instance," says
Milter, "the Shatner character was travel-
ing with his wife, a character that was
not in the short story, and for that reason
the printed story v/as much more
internalized— and more frightening. Of
course, it makes telling the story a bit
harder, but that's the way we chose to
do it."

With his share of The Twilight Zone
completed. Milter looks fonvard to his re-
turn to Australia to begin his next collab-
oration with Terry Hayes, co-writer on The
Road Warrior. "We've been trying to get
together to write something for more
fhan a year now, but things have pre-
vented it— The Road Warrior and The
Twilight Zone. There are several things I'd
like to do, but I won't tie sure just what it
will be until we actually start writing."

Born in upstate New York, Mel Gibson
is the number-one box office star in
Australia thanks to the success of the
“Max" pictures.-

Ciufching her trusty Twilight Zone, Associate Pubiisher Caroi Serling— who
plays one of the passengers on the “Nightmare” flight— joins director Miller
tor a chat over the story-boards. Soys Miller: “Believe It or not, about two
years ago I was sayirrg to someone, 'Wouldn't it be lovely if some people
got together and made a tribute to The Twilight Zone?' "

Mad Max Remembers
George Miller

by James Vernlere

In last summer's science fiction hit.

The Road Warrior, Australian actor Mel
Gibson portrayed a futuristic knight er-
rant hurtling across a blasted landscape
in a V8 Interceptor on a quest for tomor-
row's holy grail: gasoline. As Mad Max
the Road Warrior, Gibson was the mythic
antihero of the apocalypse, a punk
black-leather kamikaze in search of
something worth slammming into.

In person, actor Mel Gibson has
much better manners than the snarling,
shotgun-toting Max. He's young (twenty-
seven), shy, and very skeptical about the
recognition his success in The Road War-
rior has brought him. He's also a serious
actor (he has done Shakespeare on the
stage in Sydney), not a matinee idol,
and that seriousness is evidenced in his
performances in films such as Tim, Galli-
poli, and his latest, Peter Weir's The Year
of Living Dangerously, in which he plays
opposite Sigourney Weaver.

Born in Peekskill, New York, in 1956,
the son of a railway brakeman, Mel Gib-
son emigrafed to Australia with his family
—including ten brothers and sisters— in
1968, where he quickly acquired an Aus-
tralian accent. ("I figured the sooner I fit
in," he says, “the better off I'd be.") White
a sfudenf af the National Institute of
Dramatic Arts, Gibson played a bit part ♦
in a l&w-budget beach movie before
being cast by director George Milter in a
violent revenge film called Mad Max.
which went on to earn over a hundred
million dollars in rentals at home and
abroad. In fact. Mad Max was a tre-
mendous success everywhere but in the
U.S., where it was spottily distributed and
where it became a cult film affer being
aired on cable television.

After the success of Mad Max, Gib-
son proved that he could add critical
acclaim to his popularity at the box of-
fice with his performances in Tim, in
which he played a refarded youth, and
Gallipoli, in which he played a young
adventurer who goes off to World War I
in hope of glory.

Gibson's performance in The Road
Warrior (called Mad Max II everywhere
but in the U.S.) has established him as an
international star, Australia's first, and his
performance in The Year of Living Dan-
gerously should help him to retain that
status.

The actor, who makes his home in
Sydney with his wife and three children,
was in Manhattan recently to promote
his latest film.

TZ: How did you land the part in Mad
Max?

Gibson; I was called to audition like a
dozen others. George Milter's ideo of an
audition is to have the actor tell him a

Twilight Zone 25

joke. I guess I must've told a good one.
TZ: Why do you think Mad Max and The
Road Warrior -M^ere so successful?
Gibson: Because they're probably the
classiest B-grade trash you'll ever see. It's
the talent of George Miller. He turns trash
into art. It's amazing.

TZ: How long did it take to shoot the
films?

Gibson: Nine weeks for Mad Max and
three months for The Road Warrior.
Considering that George had not direct-
ed a feature film before, I'd say that
Mad Max was a major feat.

TZ: Do you consider yourself American
or Australian?

Gibson: Well, I was born in New York,
but I really grew up in Australia, a pro-
cess which may not be over yet. Grow-
ing up, I mean.

TZ; How would you describe Peter Weir's
film. The Year of Living Dangerousiy?
Gibson; It's difficult, because the film
operates on many levels. On one level,
it's a love story set in Indonesia during
the collapse of the Sukarno regima but
tt's also about the clash between the
East and the West.

TZ; What is Peter Weir's greatest strength
as a director?

Gibson: His ability to communicate
ideas through visual imagery.

TZ; Has Hollywood beckoned since The
Road Warrior?

Gibson (frowning): I just escaped there.
TZ; What will your next film be?

Gibson: I don't know. I'm trying to be
careful. I liked Mad Max and Road War-
rior, but I don't want to be Mr. Action
Adventure.

TZ; Then there's no chance that we'll be
seeing you in Mad Max Hi?

Gibson: No way.

... AND A RETURN
TRIP TO CHILDHOOD

The final segment to be filmed was
Spielberg's own, from a script by
Richard Matheson based on George
Clayton Johnson's Twilight Zone
episode "Kick the Can." Appropriately
for the director of E. T. , it's the gentlest
and most touching of the four stories,
a fantasy about old age and a magical
return to youth. The episode stars
Scatman Crothers, best known to film-
goers as the ill-fated Halloran in
Stanley Kubrick's The Shining.
Crothers also appeared in Silver
Streak, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's
Nest, and Lady Sings the Blues, as
well as in the tv shows Chico and the
Man and Roots. (Look for him, too, in
the recently completed tv version of
Casablanca.)

For Spielberg, who has deservedly
earned a reputation as the Pied Piper
of children's directors, it was his first
occasion to work with true old-timers,
and he claims to have noticed some re-
markable similarities;

"They both have trouble memoriz-
ing their dialogue,"he says, "and yet
they're both spontaneous beyond rea- ^
son. There's a real symbiosis that oc- |
curs between young children from the , ^

ages of six to eleven and older people
from the ages of seventy to ninety. 5,
They both go back to a kind of natural
daring — and that's what's wonderful h
about working with them." fS b

Late of The Shining, Indiana-born
Scatman Crothers— who made his
show-business debut as a slnger-
drummer-gultarist in local speakeasies
at the age of fourteen— stars in the
segment based on “Kick the Can," in
which the Inmates at an old-age
home discover a miraculous way
back to youth.

Photo by Tom Tomosulo

VC. Andrews

& ‘all those beautifully
bizarre little things’

HER BESTSELLING GOTHICS ARE POPULATED
BY CHILD-ABUSERS. PSYCHOPATHS,

AND SADISTS. AND SHE HERSELF
KNOWS A THING OR TWO ABOUT PAIN.

The Dollanganger kids— Chris, Carrie,
Cathy, and Corry. All fresh, all innocent,
and all waiting for a revenge that they
know will someday be theirs. For now,
however, they sit in a damp, empty attic
and wait. They wait not for days, buf for
years.

Such was the premise for a first
novel written by a native of Portsmoufh,
Virginia, a woman named Virginia Cleo
Andrews. The book was called Flowers
in the Attic and has surprised everyone
in publishing with a sales total that
recently approached the three-and-a-
half-million mark.

With this first novel, the lady from
Virginia seemed on her way. And it
came after a life of early promise: junior
college art courses at the age of eight
scholarship at fifteen, fledgling career as
a fashion illustrator and commercial artist
in her twenties.

But it was also a life filled with pain: a
r bad fall from a flight of stairs, four major
operations, a mediocre crew of doctors,
arthritis, paralysis.

She wrote her second novel. Petals
on the Wind, in much the same manner
she had written her first standing for

Twilight Zone 27

VC. Andrews

nearly twelve hours a day and writing
until the numbness set In. The sale of that
book totaled In the millions as well.

The Dollanganger saga continued In
1981 with If There Be Thorns. This book
brought the total sales of the tragic
trilogy past the eleven million mark.

Now, with My Sweet Audrina, VC.
Andrews leaves the kids momentarily
and heads for higher ground, still clutch-
ing, however, the safety ropes or ro-
mance, horror, incest, fear. Audrina is as
troubled, as angry, as confused, and as
crazed as are any of fhe Dollangangers.
Like the kids, she tries to lead her own
lite, tries to escape the traps set on her
by others but finds it all to be futile and
dooming.

The stories V.C. Andrews writes seem
fitting for the woman she is and for fhe
life she leads. Alone most of the day, she
lives with her mother in Virginia Beach.
Her life is dedicated to work, her work
dedicated to the passing on of f^r.

She dislikes interviews and doesn't
hide the fact. She likes money and
doesn't hide that either. She is a woman
very conscious of the pubiic perception:
the Gothic Queen, lonely, sickly, distrust-
ful of strangers, passing the time thinking
up the latest in evil and dementia.

The midtown New York hotel room
she was staying in was hot when
photographer Tom Tomasulo and I
entered. Andrews's mother greeted us
and quickly disappeared to another
room. A publicity man threw himself
across the one bed, possibly as tired of
interviews as his client.

She looked straight at Tom and me,
and in a voice of just the slightest
Southern gentility, mixing nicely with our
own urban paranoia, said: "I'll have my
pictures taken standing up."

We smiled. She didn't. As much in
person as in her novels, VC. Andrews
likes to keep people on edge, as far
away from the truth, from the reality, as
possible.

I stared at her, hoping for the slight-
est hint of warmth, of humanity. I was
given nothing in return.

TZ: My Sweet Audrina is your first
hardcover. Why the change from the
original paperback form, where you
were extremely successful, to a more
expensive, riskier area of publishing?
Andrews: It was purely my editor's
decision. I would have been happier if
all my books had come out in hard-
cover, rather than just the fourth one.
I guess it just wasn't meant to be.

TZ: How difficult was it for you to get
that first novel. Flowers in the Attic,
published?

Andrews: It wasn't difficult at all after
I had it written well. I wrote it in two
weeks. By that time, however, I had
been writing for seven years and had
written nine unpublished novels.
Flowers was the sixth one on that list,
while Petals on the Wind was the
seventh. I had no intention at all, at

that point, to write If There Be Thoms.

I had submitted Flowers three
times and almost had it sold once.
That deal fell through because the pub-
lisher wanted me to switch to the third
person and 1 just didn't think that
would work. So I put it on a shelf and
wrote something else.

I went back to it soon after that,
because I felt it was just too good a
book to be left sitting on a shelf col-
lecting dust. I rewrote the whole book
again, this time throwing in a whole
lot more strange occurrences that
weren't in the other versions. I guess
it was those strange occurrences that
sold the book. You know, all those
beautifully bizarre little things.

TZ: Why did you choose to write in
the horror genre to begin with?
Andrews: I don't think I write in the
horror-type genre at all.

TZ: What do you see it as, then?
Andrews: Novels of portents, psycho-
logical thrillers. Anything, anything at
all but horror. I don't even like the use
of the word.

TZ: A large number of teenagers and
pre-teens read your books. Are you
concerned about the negative effects
your writings may have on them?
Andrews: I always read scary books
when I was a child and it didn't do
anything to me. I didn't go out and kill
anyone or torture anyone. Besides, the
kind of violence you're talking about
doesn't exist in my books. I write
about situations that simply don't
come up in our everyday lives. The
kinds of situations that would be vir-
tually impossible to imitate or
duplicate.

TZ: What is it about children that so
fascinates you?

Andrews: 1 don't think they fascinate
me at all. I'm just telling a story about
children and from their viewpoint. I
can write about adults also.

TZ: Did you envision the Flowers,
Petals, and Thoms saga as a trilogy, or
did it just happen to evolve that way?
Andrews: It evolved. Flowers in the
Attic was one book and Petals on the
Wind was its sequel, and that was to
be it. But when the demand was so

huge and everybody was demanding to
know what happened, the publisher
asked me to do a third. I didn't really
want to. I'd grown tired of the charac-
ters. Then he offered me a certain sum
which I considered rather large, and I
decided to do it.

TZ: Do you object at all to being
labeled as a genre writer?

Andrews: Yes. But, again, I don't
think 1 fall into any particular genre.
Any genre I may fall into is my own,
one that I've started myself. I don't
think that I'm another Stephen King,
nor do I want to be.

TZ: How good a writer are you when
placed up against your contemporaries?
Andrews: I don't think anybody else
writes the same kind of stories I write
in either the same style or with the
same amount of substance. My books
deal with realism, while some of the
other writers tend to introduce the
occult into their work. I don't go any-
where near that territory. Some of the
people those other writers are writing
about don't seem to me to be real,
don't seem to be people at all, just
creations. I'm a much better writer
than that.

TZ: Is it unusual for a woman to be
writing the kinds of books which you
write?

Andrews: I don't think men write well
about women— which makes what I do
refreshing since I can bring it out from
a woman's point of view. They write
about womer as they wish women
were, not as they are. Women see
themselves much more honestly than
men see them. I don't write about men
realistically, but only as I wish they
were.

But, to answer your question, I

'‘Most critics are would-be writers
who are just jealous because Fm
getting published and they aren't. ”

28 Twilight Zone

don't think it unusual for a woman to
be writing the types of books 1 write.
Different, maybe, but not unusual.

TZ: What do you think you do better
than any other writer?

Andrews: I think I'm really strong at
emotions. I can make people feel. Most
of my fan letters usually say things
like, "I didn't know a book could
make me cry," or "that a book could
make me feel more than a movie or a
television show." People can become
more involved in one of my books
than in anything they could possibly
see in their movie theaters or sitting in
their living rooms. 1 don't think that
there are many writers who can do
that, bring out those emotions, as well
as I can.

TZ: What don't you do well? What
area of your writing needs the most
work?

Andrews: My critics should be able to
answer that one quite easily. I certainly
can't answer it.

TZ: Is critical reaction important to
the types of books that you do, since
they seem to sell no matter what the
critics say about them?

Andrews: I don't care what the critics
say. I used to, until I found out that
most critics are would-be writers who
are just jealous because I'm getting
published and they aren't. I also don't
think that anybody cares about what
they say. Nor should they care.

TZ: Do you have in your mind an
idea of who exactly it is that buys your
books? What kind of a person?
Andrews: Strangely enough, I get a lot
of photographs in my mail from young
girls who read my books. They're
about fourteen, they wear glasses,
most of them have long hair, and most
look like the characters I've written
about. Except for the glasses. My char-
acters don't wear glasses.

TZ: Would you like to move your
writing more into the mainstream,
veering away from the work you now
do on to something totally different?
Andrews: I'd love to.

TZ: What's stopping you?

Andrews: My editor. There's a lot of
pressure placed on me to keep writing
thrillers or chillers or whatever they are.

I don't know how to describe them.

TZ: Is your day broken into any spe-
cific work pattern or set routine?
Andrews: No. I dress in the morning
a's if I were on my way to work. Then
I go write, and I write until somebody
tells me it's time to eat. If no one told

me to eat, I wouldn't eat. Then I go
back and write some more and stop
when someone calls me for dinner.
After dinner I go back and write until
I'm so tired that I have to quit. The
next day, I start all over again.

When I'm writing, I find myself
working day after day after day. It's
my work, but it's also what I have the
most fun doing.

TZ: How long does it take you to
complete a novel?

Andrews: My Sweet Audrina took a
little longer because I was learning to
use a word processor. Once I learned
to use the machine and not lose every-
thing I was writing, it took about five
months.

TZ: Do you rewrite a great deal?
Andrews: Yes. I do about three or
four drafts, starting with very short
drafts and working my way up to
novel-length ones.

TZ: Does the fact that you live a
somewhat secluded life help or hinder
your work?

Andrews: I don't think it matters
where you live, so long as you have a
place to be alone. I don't look out the
window much when I write. I just stare
at that screen and type out the words.
TZ: There is, however, an image of
you being a reclusive person. How
much of that is true?

Andrews: All my friends laugh at that
image. I don't think I'm a recluse. I

Inside the Mind of a Psychopath . . .

“Now you be a good little
girl and keep on playing with
your rubber ducky and boat,"
said Emma to Cindy. “Emma will
be right back.”

My head lifted before I
began to wiggle on my belly
on the ground. The brat in the
pool stood up and took off her
bathing suit. Stark naked and
bold she hurled her wet suit at
me, then teased and laughed
and tormented me with her
bare flesh. Then, as if bored
with my reaction, she sat again
in the shallow water and stared
down at herself with a secret
little smile. Wicked! Shameless!
Imagine her showing her pri-
vate parts to me.

Mothers should treat their
daughters how to act decent,
proper, modest. My mother was
just like Corrine, whom John
Amos had said was weak and
never punished her children
enough. “Yes, Bart, your grand-
mother ruined her children, and
now they live in sin and flaunt
God and his moral rules!”

I guess it was up to me to
teach Cindy a lesson about
modesty and shame. Forward I
wiggled. Now I had her atten-'
tion. Her blue eyes opened
wide. Her rosy full lips parted. At
first she seemed happy that
finally I was gonna ploy kiddy

games with her. Then, some-
thing wise put fright in her eyes.
She froze and made me think
of a timid rabbit scared by a
vicious snake. Snake. Much bet-
ter to be a snake than a cat.
Snake in The Garden of Eden
doing unto Eve what should
have been done in the begin-
ning. Lo, said the Lord when he
spied Eve In her nakedness,
go forth from Eden and let the
world hurl their stones.

Hissing and flicking my
tongue in and out, I edged
closer. Was the Lord who spoke
and I who obeyed. Wicked
mother who refused to punish
had made me what I was, an
evil snake willing to do the
Lord’s bidding, even if it wasn’t
my own way.

I tried to flatten my head
with willpower and make it
small, flat and reptilelike. Tears
came to Cindy’s huge, scared
eyes, and she b^an to bawl
as she tried to wiggle over the
rounded rim of the wading
pool. The water wasn’t deep
enough for a little girl to drown
in, or else Emma wouldn’t have
left her alone.

But ... if a boa constrictor
from Brazil was on the loose—
what chance did a two-year-
old have?

—from If There Be Thorns (1981)

Twilight Zone 29

Reprinted by permission of Pocket Books.

Thomas Swick

VC. Andrews

just don't like to be bothered when I'm
writing.

TZ: Why do you think people are still
fascinated with the subject matter you
choose to write about?

Andrews: I think there is something in
all of us that just likes to be scared,
something that takes you out of your
own life. It gives you the feeling that>
while things may be bad for you,
they're much worse for the character
you're reading about. You can then
come back into your own life with a
sense of relief. People love to be fright-
ened. Many of my readers tell me they
sit tense on the chair or sofa as they
turn the pages. They love it.

TZ: Is the field you write in, thriller,
horror, whatever, too cluttered, with
far too many people writing the same
kinds of books?

Andrews: I don't read those kinds of
books, so I'm really not the one to ask.
I know that only a few of the writers
stand out, most of whom I don't like,
but I don't think I should mention
their names.

TZ: Did you begin writing novels us-
ing the initials V. C. to hide the fact
that you're a woman, to give the
books another touch of mystery?
Andrews: I wish I could say that was
true, but it was strictly an editorial

would read all of my father's books. I
read all the time. By the time I was
seven years old, I had decided to be-
come a writer. I just couldn't wait to
sit down and write stories for people to
read.

‘7 don 7 think that Fm another
Stephen King, nor do I want to be. ”

decision. They didn't ask me for my
opinion.

TZ: What is your opinion?

Andrews: My opinion is that I want
my whole name on the book.

TZ: Very little is known about your
childhood. Can you briefly tell me
what kind of a childhood you had?
Andrews: In other words, did I have a
miserable childhood?

TZ: Not necessarily. Just what were
you like as a child?

Andrews: I was someone who loved
books. I read as many as the library
would let me take home, and then I

TZ: You were an artist for a while,
weren't you?

Andrews: Yes, but not a very success-
ful one. I could barely eke out a living.
I also was not very satisfied with the
form, with the medium. I won quite a
few awards, but I wasn't making any
money.

TZ: How long have you been in a
wheelchair? How long have you been
paralyzed?

Andrews: Everyone seems to think I
never leave this chair, but I do get out
of it. I've been this way now for about
ten years.

TZ: What caused it?

Andrews: I had a fall and in order to
save myself from breaking my neck — I
was falling down a flight of stairs — I
twisted around and grabbed the ban-
ister. In so doing 1 tore the membrane
and the long bone. The doctors didn't
believe I was in any pain and kept
sending me home. This caused the tear
to heal improperly, and it led to my
having arthritis. I was in such pain
that for seven years I could hardly
stand, let alone walk across the hall.
TZ: Do you think the accident you've
had has in any way affected the way
you look at life or the type of work
you do?

Andrews: That's difficult to answer.
How would I know unless I'd lived
another kind of life? I suppose it's
bound to; anything you experience af-
fects the way you write.

TZ: Do you have another project lined
up?

Andrews: I'm working on the fourth
Dollanganger book.

TZ: Watch out!

Andrews: You better believe it. I've
done five chapters thus far, and it's
better than anything I've ever written.
TZ: Do you need any special equip-
ment to do your work?

Andrews: Not really. For years I used
to stand up and write, because at the
angle I'm sitting in the chair I can't see
the type. I would have to tilt the type-
writer. But now, with the word proces-
sor, I don't need to stand.

TZ: Does it hurt for you to work, to
write?

Andrews: You don't know it hurts un-
til you're finished. Then there's a great
deal of pain. You never get used to the
pain.

TZ: Does your paralysis further aug-
ment that image of you as the lonely,
battered woman writing novels of
death and doom?

Andrews: To the people who don't
know me it does, and it may have
helped sell a few more copies of my
books than would normally have been
sold. But to my friends, that's all one
big joke.

TZ: What do you do to break from
writing stories that scare most of the
people who read them?

Andrews: I go shopping. I also love to
play games — chess, backgammon, that
sort of thing. I like movies and the
ballet also, but mostly I shop and play
games.

TZ: As a beginning writer, did you
ever feel like giving up? Did you tire of
the constant rejections?

Andrews: No. I was addicted to it. I
was determined to be successful and I
worked as hard as I could to be so. I
would never have given up. Never. It's
just not in me.

TZ: Do you enjoy this part of what
has become the writer's job — selling the
book?

Andrews: No. I see it totally as an in-
vasion of privacy. Everyone seems to
want to know all your deep dark
secrets. Even you.

TZ: I haven't asked you about any of
your secrets.

Andrews: No, but I'll bet you'd just
love to. iQ

the new novel by

Peter Straub

author of GHOST STORY

* Cosmo

$15.95, nowat G.P. PUTNAM’S SONS

your bookstore A Member of The Putnam Publishing Group

Illustration by David Klein

THE

RAFT

STEPHEN

KING

THERE WERE FIVE OF THEM OUT
THERE IN THE CHILL WATER:
TWO GIRLS, TWO BOYS . .
AND SOMETHING WORSE THAN
THEIR DARKEST NIGHTMARES.
WHAT FOLLOWS IS A TALE OF
TOTAL, UNRELIEVED HORROR—
DEFINITELY NOT FOR THE
FAINT OF HEART.

I t was forty miles from Horlicks University in Pitts-
burgh to Cascade Lake, and although dark comes
early to that part of the world in October, and
although they didn't get going until six o'clock, there
was still a little light in the sky when they got there.
They had come in Deke's Camaro. Deke didn't waste
any time when he was sober. After a couple of beers,
he made that Camaro walk and talk.

He had hardly brought the car to a stop at the
pole fence between the parking lot and the beach
before he was out of the Camaro and pulling off his
shirt. His eyes were scanning the water for the raft.
Randy got out of the shotgun seat, a little reluctantly.
This had been his idea, true enough; but he had never
expected Deke to take it seriously. The girls were mov-
ing around in the back seat, getting ready to get out.

Twilight Zone 33

1982 by Stephen King

THE

RAFT

Deke's eyes scanned the water restlessly, side to
side (sniper's eyes, Randy thought uncomfortably), and
then fixed on a point.

"It's there!" he shouted, slapping the hood of the
Camaro. "Just like you said, Randy! Last one in's a
rotten egg!"

"Deke — " Randy began, resetting his glasses on
his nose; but that was all he bothered with, because
Deke was vaulting the fence and running down the
beach, not looking back at Randy or Rachel or
LaVerne, only looking out at the raft, which was an-
chored about fifty yards out on the lake.

Randy looked around, as if to apologize to the
girls for getting them into this; but they were looking
at Deke. Rachel looking at him was all right — Rachel
was his girl — but LaVerne was looking at him too, and
Randy felt a hot momentary spark of jealousy that got
him moving. He peeled off his own sweat shirt, dropped
it beside Deke's, and hopped over the fence.

"Randy!" LaVerne called, and he only pulled his
arm forward through the gray twilit October air in a
come-on gesture, hating himself a little for doing it.
She was -unsure now, perhaps ready to cry it off. The
idea of an October swim in the deserted lake wasn't
just part of a comfortable, well-lighted bull session in
the apartment he and Deke shared anymore. He liked
her, but Deke was stronger. And damned if she didn't
have the hots for Deke, and damned if it wasn't
irritating.

Deke unbuckled his jeans, still running, and
pushed them off his lean hips. He somehow got out of
them all the way without stopping, a feat Randy could
not have duplicated in a thousand years. Deke ran on,
now only wearing bikini briefs, the muscles in his back
and buttocks working gorgeously. Randy was more
than aware of his own skinny shanks as he dropped his
Levis and clumsily shook them free of his feet. With
Deke it was ballet; with him it was burlesque.

Deke hit the water and bellowed, "Cold! Mother
of Jesus!"

Randy hesitated, but only in his mind, where
things took longer. That water's forty-five degrees,
fifty at most, his mind told him. Your heart could stop.
He was pre-med; he knew that was true . . . but in the
physical world he didn't hesitate at all. He leaped in,
and for a moment his heart did stop, or seemed to; his
breath clogged in his throat; and he had to force a gasp
of air into his lungs as all his submerged skin went
numb. This is crazy, he thought; and then. But
it was your idea, Pancho. He began to stroke after
Deke.

The two girls looked at each other for a mo-
ment. LaVerne shrugged and grinned. "If they can, we
can," she said, stripping off her LaCoste shirt to reveal
an almost transparent bra. "Aren't girls supposed to
have an extra layer of fat?"

Then she was over the fence and running for the

water, unbuttoning her cords. After a moment Rachel
followed her, much as Randy had followed Deke.

T he girls had come over to the apartment at
mid-afternoon — on Tuesdays, a one o'clock
was the latest class any of them had. Deke's
monthly allotment had come in — one of the football-
mad alumni (the players called them angels) saw that
he got two hundred a month in cash — and there was a
case of beer in the fridge and a new Triumph album on
Randy's battered stereo. The four of them set about
getting pleasantly oiled. After a while, the talk had
turned to the end of the long Indian summer they had
been enjoying. The radio was predicting flurries for
Wednesday. (LaVerne had advanced the opinion that
weathermen predicting snow flurries in October should
be shot, and no one had disagreed.)

Rachel said that summers seemed to last forever
when she was a girl; but now that she was an adult ("a
doddering, senile, old nineteen," Deke joked, and she
kicked his ankle), they got shorter every year. "It
seemed like I spent my life out at Cascade Lake," she
said, crossing the decayed kitchen linoleum to the ice-
box. She peered in, found an Iron City Light hiding be-
hind a stack of blue Tupperware storage boxes (the one
in the middle contained some nearly prehistoric chili,
which was now thickly festooned with mold; Randy
was a good student and Deke was a good football
player, but neither of them was worth a fart in a noise-
maker when it came to housekeeping), and appropri-
ated it. "I can still remember the first time I managed
to swim all the way out to the raft. I sat there for
damn near two hours, scared to swim back."

She sat down next to Deke, who put an arm
around her. She smiled, remembering, and Randy sud-
denly thought she looked like someone famous or
semi-famous. He couldn't quite place the resemblance.
It would come to him later, under less pleasant
circumstances.

"Finally, my brother had to swim out and tow
me back on an inner tube. God, he was mad. And I
had a sunburn like you wouldn't believe."

"The raft's still out there." Randy said, mainly
just to say something. He was aware that LaVerne had
been looking at Deke again; lately it seemed like she
looked at Deke a lot.

But now she looked at him. "It's almost Hallow-
een, Randy. Cascade Beach has been closed since Labor
Day."

"Raft's still out there, though," Randy said. "We
were on the other side of the lake on a geology field
trip about three weeks ago and I saw it then. It looked
like ..." He shrugged. "... a little bit of summer that
somebody forgot to clean up and put away in the
closet until next year."

He thought they would laugh at that, but no
one did — not even Deke.

34 Twilight Zone

When he had first
seen it,

the patch had been
maybe forty yards from
the raft. Now it was
only half that distance.

"Just because it was there last year doesn't mean
it's still there," La Verne said.

"I mentioned it to a guy," Randy said, finishing
his own beer. "Billy DeLois. Do you remember him,
Deke?"

Deke nodded. "Played second-string until he got

hurt."

"Yeah, him. Anyway, he comes from out that
way, and he said the guys who own the beach never
take it in until the lake's almost ready to freeze. Just
lazy — at least, that's what he said. He said that some
year they'd wait too long and it would get ice-locked."
■ He fell silent, remembering how the raft had
looked, anchored out there on the lake — a square of
bright white wood in all that bright blue autumn
water. He remembered how the sound of the barrels
under it — that buoyant clunk-clunk sound — had drifted
up to them. The sound was soft, but sounds carried
well on the still air around the lake. There had been
that sound and the sound of crows squabbling over the
remnants of some farmer's harvested garden.

"Snow tomorrow," Rachel said, getting up as
Deke's hand wandered almost absently down to the
upper swell of her breast. She went to the window and
looked out. "What a bummer."

"I'll tell you what," Randy said, "let's go on out
to Cascade Lake. We'll swim out to the raft, say good-
bye to summer, and then swim back."

If he hadn't been half-loaded he never would have
made the suggestion, and he certainly didn't expect
anyone to take it seriously. But Deke jumped on it.

"All right!" he shouted, making LaVerne jump
and spill her beer. But she smiled — the smile made
Randy a little uneasy. "Let's do it!"

"Deke, you're crazy," Rachel said, also smiling
— but her smile looked a little tentative, a little
worried.

"No, I'm going to do it," Deke said, going for
his coat; and, with a mixture of dismay and excite-
ment, Randy noted Deke's grin — reckless and a little
crazy. The two of them had been rooming together for
three years now — the Jock and the Brain, Cisco and
Pancho, Batman and Robin — and Randy recognized
ihat grin. Deke wasn't kidding; he meant to do it.

Forget it, Cisco — not me. The words rose to his
lips, but before he could say them LaVerne was on her

feet, the same cheerful, loony look in her eyes (or
maybe it was just too much beer). "I'm up for it!" she
shouted.

"Then let's go!" Deke looked at Randy. "What-
choo say, Pancho?"

He had looked at Rachel for a moment then,
and saw something almost frantic in her eyes — as far as
he himself was concerned, Deke and LaVerne could go
out to Cascade Lake together and plow the back forty
all night. He would not be delighted with the
knowledge that they were boffing each other's brain
out, yet neither would he be surprised. But the look in
her eyes, that haunted look —

"Oh, Ceesco!" he cried. He-and Deke slapped

palms.

R andy was halfway to the raft when he saw the
black patch on the water. It was beyond the
raft and to the left of it, more out toward the
middle of the lake. Five minutes later, the light would
have failed too much for him to tell if it was anything
more than a shadow ... if he had seen it at all. Oil
slick? he thought, still pulling hard through the water,
faintly aware of the girls splashing behind him. But
what would an oil slick be doing on an October
deserted lake? And it was oddly circular, small, surely
no more than five feet in diameter —

"Whoooo!" Deke shouted again, and Randy
looked toward him. Deke was climbing the -ladder on
the side of the raft, shaking off water like a dog. *
"Howya doon, Pancho?"

"Okay!" he called back, pulling harder. It really
wasn't as bad as he had thought it might be, not once
you got in and got moving. His body tingled with
warmth and now his motor was in overdrive. He could
feel his heart putting out good revs, heating him from
the inside out. His folks had a place on Cape Cod, and
the water there was worse than this in mid-July.

"You think it's bad now, Pancho, wait'll you get
out!" Deke yelled gleefully. He was hopping up and
down, making the raft rock, rubbing his body.

Randy forgot about the oil slick until his hands
actually grasped the rough, white-painted wood of the
ladder on the shore side. Then he saw it again. It was
a little closer. A round, dark patch on the water, like a
big mole, rising and falling on the mild waves. When
he had first seen it, the patch had been maybe forty
yards from the raft. Now it was only half that
distance.

How can that be? How —

Then he came out of the water and the cold air
bit his skin, bit it even harder than the water had when
he first dived irr. "Ohhhhh, shit!" he yelled, laughing,
shivering in his jockey shorts.

"Pancho, you arsehole," Deke said happily. He
pulled Randy up. "Cold enough for you? You sober
yet?"

Twilight Zone 35

THE

RAFT

"I'm sober! I'm sober!" He began to jump
around as Deke had done, clapping his arms across his
chest and stomach in an X. They turned to look at the
girls.

Rachel had pulled ahead of LaVerne, who was ,
doing something that looked like a dog paddle per-
formed by a dog with bad instincts.

"You ladies okay?" Deke bellowed.

"Go to hell. Macho City!" LaVerne called, and
Deke broke up again.

Randy glanced to the side and saw that odd cir-
cular patch was even closer — ten yards now, and still
coming. It floated on the water, round and regular,
like the top of a large steel drum; but the limber way it
rode the swells made it clear that it was not the surface
of a solid object. A sudden fear, directionless but
powerful, seized him.

"Swim!" he shouted at the girls, and bent down
to grasp Rachel's hand as she reached the ladder. He
hauled her up. She bumped her knee hard — he heard
the thud of her thinly clad flesh against wood.

"Ow! Hey! What — " «

LaVerne was still ten feet away. Randy glanced
to the side again and saw the round thing nuzzle the
offside of the raft. The thing was as dark as oil, but he
was sure it wasn't oil — it was too dark, too thick, too
even.

"Randy, that hurt! What are you doing, being

fun — "

"LaVerne! Swim!" Now it wasn't just fear; now
it was terror.

LaVerne looked up, maybe not hearing the ter-
ror, but at least hearing the urgency. She looked puz-
zled, but she dog-paddled faster, closing the distance to
the ladder.

"Randy, what's wrong with you?" Deke asked.

Randy looked to the side again and saw the
thing fold itself around the raft's square corner. For a
moment it looked like a Pac-Man image with its mouth
open to eat electronic cookies. Then it slipped all the
way around the corner and began to slide along the
raft, one of its edges, now straight.

"Help me get her up!" Randy grunted to Deke,
and reached for her hand. "Quick!"

Deke shrugged good-naturedly and reached for
LaVerne's other hand. They pulled her up and onto the
raft's board surface bare seconds before the black thing
slid by the ladder, its sides dimpling as it slipped past
the ladder's uprights.

"Randy, have you gone crazy?" LaVerne was
out of breath, a little frightened. Her nipples were
clearly visible through the bra. They stood out in cold
hard points.

"That thing," Randy said, pointing. "Deke?
What is it?"

Deke spotted it. It had reached the left-hand
corner of the raft. It drifted off a little to one side.

“It went for the girls,”
Randy said.

“Come on,

Poncho. I thought you
said you got sober.”

“It went for the girls,”
he repeated, stubbornly,
and thought. No one
knows we’re here.

No one at all.

reassuming its round shape. It simply floated there.
The four of them looked at it.

"Oil slick, I guess," Deke said.

'Tou really racked my knee," Rachel said,
glancing at the dark thing on the water and then back
at Randy. "You — "

"It's not an oil slick," Randy said. "Did you
ever see a round oil slick? That thing looks like a
checker."

"I never saw an oil slick at all," Deke replied.
He was talking to Randy but he was looking at
LaVerne. LaVerne's panties were almost as transparent
as her bra, the delta of her sex sculpted neatly in silk,
each buttock a taut crescent. "I don't even believe in
them. I'm from Missouri."

"I'm going to bruise," Rachel said, but the anger
had gone out of her voice. She had seen Deke looking
at LaVerne.

"God, I'm cold," LaVerne said. She shivered
prettily.

"It went for the girls," Randy said.

"Come on, Pancho. I thought you said you got

sober."

"It went for the girls," he repeated, stubbornly,
and thought. No one knows we're here. No one at all.

"Have you ever seen an oil slick, Pancho?" He
had put his arm around LaVerne's bare shoulders in the
same almost-absent way that he had touched Rachel's
breast earlier that day. He wasn't touching LaVerne's
breast — not yet, anyway — but his hand was close.
Randy found he didn't care much, one way or another.
That black, circular patch on the water. He cared
about that.

"I saw one on the Cape four years ago," he

36 Twilight Zone

said. "We all pulled birds out of the surf and tried to
clean them off — "

"Ecological, Pancho," Deke said approvingly.
"Mucho ecological, I theenk."

Randy said, "It was just this big, sticky mess all
over the water. In streaks and big smutches. It didn't
look like that. It wasn't, you know, compact."

It looked like an accident, he wanted to say.
That thing doesn't look like an accident; it looks like
it’s on purpose.

"I want to go back now," Rachel said. She was
still looking at Deke and LaVerne, and Randy saw dull
hurt in her face. He doubted if she knew it showed so
clearly— on second thought, he doubted if she knew it
was there at all.

"So go," LaVerne said. There was a look on her
face — the clarity of absolute triumph, Randy thought,
and if the thought seemed pretentious, it also seemed
exactly right. The expression was not aimed precisely
at Rachel . . . but neither was LaVerne trying to hide it
from the other girl.

She moved a step closer to Deke; a step was all
there was. Now their hips touched lightly. For one
brief moment, Randy's attention passed from the thing
floating on the water and focused with an almost ex-
quisite hate on LaVerne. Although he had never hit a
girl, in that one moment he could have hit her with
real pleasure. Not because he loved her (he had been a
little infatuated with her, yes, and more than a little
horny for her, yes, and a lot jealous when she had
begun to come on to Deke back at the apartment, oh
■yes, but he wouldn't have brought a girl he actually
loved within fifteen miles of Deke), but because
he knew that expression on Rachel's face — how that

expression felt inside.

"I'm afraid," Rachel said.

"Of an oil slick?" LaVerne asked incredulously,
and then laughed. The urge to hit her swept over Ran-
dy again — to just swing a big roundhouse openhanded
blow through the air, to wipe that look of half-assed
hauteur from her face and leave a mark on her cheek
that would bruise in the shape of a hand.

"Let's see you swim back, then," Randy said.

LaVerne smiled indulgently at him. "I'm not
ready to go," she said, as if explaining to a child. She
looked up at the sky, then at Deke. "I want to watch
the stars come out."

Rachel was a short girl, pretty, but in a gamine,
slightly insecure way that made Randy think of New
York girls — hurrying to work in the morning, wearing
their smartly tailored skirts with slits in the front or up
one side, wearing that same look of slightly neurotic
prettiness. Rachel's eyes always sparkled, but it was
hard to tell if it was good cheer that lent them that
lively look or just free-floating anxiety.

Deke's tastes usually ran more to tall girls with
dark hair and sleepy sloe eyes, and Randy saw it was
now over between Deke and Rachel— whatever there
had been, something simple and maybe a little boring
on his part, something deep and complicated and prob-
ably painful on hers. It was over, so cleanly and sud-
denly that Randy almost heard the snap: a sound like
dry kindling broken over a knee. ^

He was a shy b'?)y, but he moved next to Rachel
now and put an arm around her. She glanced up at
him briefly, her face unhappy but grateful for his
gesture, and he was glad he had improved the situation
for her a little. That similarity bobbed into his mind
again. Something in her face, her looks . . .

He first associated it with tv game shows, then
with commercials for crackers or wafers or some damn
thing. It came to him then — she looked like Sandy
Duncan, the actress who had played in the revival of
Peter Pan on Broadway.

"What is that thing?" she asked. "Randy? What
is it?" .

"I don't know."

He glanced at Deke and saw Deke looking at
him with that familiar smile that was more living fa-
miliarity than contempt . . . but the contempt was
there, too. Maybe Deke didn't even know it, but it
was. The expression said. Here goes oV worrywart
Randy, pissing in his didies again. It was supposed to
make Randy mumble an addition — It's probably
nothing. Don't worry about it, it’ll go away. Some-
thing like that.^He didn't. Let Deke smile. The black
patch on the water scared him. That was the truth.

Rachel stepped away from Randy and knelt
prettily on the corner of the raft closest to the thing,
and for a moment she triggered an even clearer
memory association: the girl on the White Rock soda

Twilight Zone 37

THE

RAFT

labels. Sandy Duncan on the White Rock labels, his
mind amended. Her hair, a close-cropped, slightly
coarse blonde, lay wetly against her finely shaped
skull. He could see goosebumps on her shoulder
blades, above the white band of her bra.

"Don't fall in, Rache," LaVerne said with bright

malice.

"Quit it, LaVerne," Deke said, still smiling.

Randy looked from them, standing in the mid-
dle of the raft with their arms loosely around each
other's waist, hips touching lightly, and back at
Rachel. Alarm raced down his spine and out through
his nerves like fire. The black patch had halved the
distance between it and the corner of the raft where
Rachel was kneeling and looking at it. It had been six
or eight feet away before. Now the distance was three
feet or less. And he saw a strange look in her eyes, a
round blankness that seemed queerly like the round
blankness of the thing in the water.

Now it's Sandy Duncan sitting on a White Rock
label and pretending to be hypnotized by the rich,
delicious flavor of Nabisco* Honey Grahams, he
thought idiotically, feeling his heart speed up as it had
in the water, and he called out, "Get away from there,
Rachel!"

Then everything happened very fast — things
happened with the rapidity of fireworks going off. And
yet he saw and heard each thing with perfect, hellish
clarity. Each thing seemed caught in its own little
capsule.

LaVerne laughed — on the quad in a bright after-
noon hour it might have sounded like any college girl's
laugh, but out here, in the growing dark, it sounded
like the arid cackle of a witch making magic in a pot.

"Rachel, maybe you better get b — " Deke said,
but she interrupted him, almost surely for the first time
in her life, and indubitably for the last.

"It has colors!" she cried in a voice of utter,
trembling wonder. Her eyes stared at the black patch
on the water with blank rapture, and for just a mo-
ment Randy thought he saw what she was talking
about — colors, yeah, colors, swirling in rich, inward-
turning spirals. Then they were gone, and there was
only dull, lusterless black again. "Such beautiful
colors!"

"Rachel!"

She reached for it — out and down — her white
arm, marbled with gooseflesh, her hand, held out to it,
meaning to touch; he saw she had bitten her nails ragged.

"Rfl-"

He sensed the raft tilt in the water as Deke moved
toward them. He reached for Rachel at the same time,
meaning to pull her back, dimly aware that he didn't
want Deke to be the one to do it.

Then Rachel's hand touched the water — her
forefinger only, sending out one delicate ripple in a
ring — and the black patch surged over it. Randy heard

her gasp in air, and suddenly the blankness left her
eyes. What replaced it was agony.

The black, viscous substance ran up her arm
like mud . . . and under it; Randy saw her skin dissolv-
ing. She opened her mouth and screamed. At the same
moment she began to tilt outward. She waved her
other hand blindly at Randy and he grabbed for it.
Their fingers brushed. Her eyes met his, and she still
looked hellishly like Sandy Duncan. Then she fell
clumsily outward and splashed into the water.

The black thing flowed over the spot where she
had landed.

“What happened?" LaVerne was screaming
behind them. "What happened? Did she fall in? What
happened to her?"

Randy made as if to dive in after her and Deke
pushed him backward with casual force. "No," he said
in a frightened voice that was utterly unlike Deke.

All three of them saw her flail to the surface.
Her arms came up, waving — no, not arms. One arm.
The other was covered with a grotesque black mem-
brane that hung in flaps and folds from something red
and knitted with tendons, something that looked a lit-
tle like a rolled roast of beef.

"Help!" Rachel screamed. Her eyes glared at
them, away from them, at them, away — her eyes were
like lanterns being waved aimlessly in the dark. She
beat the water into a froth. "Help it hurts please help it
hurts IT HURTS IT HURRRRR-"

Randy had fallen when Deke pushed him. Now
he got up from the boards of the raft and stumbled
forward again, unable to ignore that voice. He tried to
jump in and Deke grabbed him, wrapping his big arms
around Randy's thin chest.

"No, she's dead," he whispered harshly. "Christ,
can't you see that? She's dead, Pancho."

Thick blackness suddenly poured across Rachel's
face like a drape, and her screams were first muffled
and then cut off entirely. Now the black stuff seemed
to bind her in crisscrossing ropes — or strands of spider-
webbing. Randy could see it sinking into her like acid,
and when her jugular vein gave way in a dark, pump-
ing jet, he saw the thing send out a pseudopod after
the escaping blood. He could not believe what he was
seeing, could not understand it . . . but there was no
doubt, no sensation of losing his mind, no belief that
he was dreaming or hallucinating.

LaVerne was screaming. Randy turned to look
at her just in time to see her slap a hand melodrama-
tically over her eyes like a silent movie heroine. He
thought he would laugh and tell her this, but found he
could not make a sound.

He looked back at Rachel. Rachel was almost
not there anymore.

Her struggles had weakened to the point where
they were really no more than spasms. The blackness
oozed over her — bigger now, Randy thought, it's

38 Twilight Zone

Thick blackness suddenly
poured across Rachel’s
face like a drape,
and her screams were
first muffled and then
cut off entirely.

bigger, no question about it — with mute, muscular
power. He saw her hand beat at it; saw the hand be-
come stuck, as if in molasses or on flypaper; saw it
consumed. Now there was a sense of her form only,
not in the water but in the black thing, not turning
but being turned, the form becoming less recogniz-
able, a white flash — bone, he thought sickly, and
turned away, vomiting helplessly over the side of the
raft.

La Verne was still screaming. Then there was a
dull whap! She stopped screaming and began to
snivel.

He hit her, Randy thought. I was going to do
that, remember?

He stepped back, wiping his mouth, feeling
weak and ill. And scared. So scared he could think
with only one tiny wedge of his mind. Soon he would
begin to scream himself. Then Deke would have to
slap him, Deke wouldn't panic, oh no,. Deke was hero
material for sure. You gotta be a football hero ... to
get along with the beautiful girls, his mind sang,
cheerfully. Then he could hear Deke talking to him
dimly, and he looked up at the sky, trying to clear his
head, trying desperately to put away the vision of
Rachel's form becoming blobbish and inhuman as that
black thing ate her, not wanting Deke to slap him the
way he had slapped LaVerne.

He looked up at the sky and saw the first stars
shining up there — the shape of the Dipper already clear
as the last white light faded out of the west. It was
nearly seven-thirty,

"Oh, Ceesco," he managed. "We are in beeg
trouble thees time, I theenk."

"What is it?" His hand fell on Randy's shoulder,
gripping and twisting painfully. "It ate her, did you see
that? It ate her, it fucking ate her up! What is it?"

"I don't know. Didn't you hear me before?"

"You're supposed to know, you're a fucking
brain-ball, you take all the fucking science courses!"
Now Deke was almost screaming himself, and that
helped Randy get a little more control.

"There's nothing like that in any science book I
ever read," Randy told him. "The last time I saw
anything like that was the Halloween shock-show
down at the Rialto when I was twelve."

The thing had regained its round shape now. It
floated on the water ten feet from the raft.

"It's bigger," LaVerne moaned.

When Randy had first seen it, he had guessed its
diameter at about five feet. Now it had to be at least
eight feet across.

"It's bigger because it ate Rachel!" LaVerne
cried, and began to scream again.

"Stop that or I'm going to break your jaw,"
Deke said, and she stopped — not all at once, but wind-
ing down the way a record does when somebody turns
off the juice without taking the needle off the disc. Her
eyes were huge things.

Deke looked back at Randy. "You all right,
Pancho?"

"I don't know. I guess so."

"My man." Deke tried to smile, and Randy saw
with some alarm that he was succeeding — was some
part of Deke enjoying this? "You don't have any idea
at all what it might be?"

Randy shook his head. Maybe it was an oil
slick, after all ... or had been, until something had
happened to it. Maybe cosmic rays had hit it in a cer-
tain way. Or maybe Arthur Godfrey had pissed atomic
Bisquick all over it. Who knew? Who could know?

"Can we swim past it, do you think?" Deke per-
sisted, shaking Randy's shoulder.

"No!" LaVerne shrieked.

"Stop it or I'm gonna smoke you, LaVerne,"
Deke said, raising his voice for the first time. "I'm not
kidding."

"You saw how fast it took Rachel," Randy said.

"Maybe it was hungry then," Deke answered.
"But maybe now it's full."

Randy thought of Rachel kneeling there on the
comer of the raft, so still and pretty in her bra and
panties, and felt his gorge rise again.

"You try it," he said to Deke.

Deke grinned humorlessly. "Oh, Pancho."

"Oh, Ceesco."

"I want to go home," LaVerne said in a furtive
whisper. "Okay?"

Neither of them replied.

"So we wait for it to go away," Deke said. "It
came, it'll go away."

"Maybe," Randy said.

Deke looked at him, his face full of a fierce con-
centration in the gloom. "Maybe? What's this 'maybe'
shit?"

"We came, and it came. I saw it come — like it
smelled us. If it's full, like you say, it'll go. I guess. If it
still wants chow — " he shrugged.

Deke stood thoughtfully, head bent. His short
hair was still dripping a little.

"We waitj' he said. "Let it eat fish."

F ifteen minutes passed. They didn't talk. It got
colder. It was maybe fifty degrees and all three
of them were in their underwear. After the
first ten minutes, Randy could hear the brisk, intermit-

- . , Twilight Zone 39

THE

RAFT

tent clickety-click of his teeth. LaVerne had tried to
move next to Deke, but he pushed her away — gently
but firmly enough.

"Let me be for now," he said.

So she sat down, arms crossed over her breasts,
hands cupping her elbows, shivering. She looked at
Randy, her eyes telling him he could come back, put
his arm around her, it was okay now.

He looked away instead, back at the dark circle
on the water. It just floated there, not coming any
closer, but not going away, either. He looked toward
the shore and there was the beach, a ghostly white
crescent that seemed to float. The trees behind it made
a dark, bulking horizon line. He thought he could see
Deke's Camaro, but he wasn't sure.

"We just picked up and went," Deke said
thoughtfully.

"That's right," Randy said.

"Didn't tell anyone."

"No."

"So no one knows we're here."

"No." *

"Stop it!" LaVerne shouted. "Stop it, you're
scaring me!"

"Shut your pie-hole," Deke said absently, and
Randy laughed in spite of himself — no matter how
many times Deke said that, it always slew him. "If we
have to spend the night out here, we do. Somebody'll
hear us yelling tomorrow. We're hardly in the middle
of the Australian outback, are we, Randy?"

Randy said nothing.

"Are we?"

"You know where we are," Randy said. "You
know as well as I do. We turned off Route Forty-one,
we came up eight miles of back road — "

"Cottages every fifty feet — "

"Summer cottages. This is October. They're
empty, the whole- fucking bunch of them. We got here
and you had to drive around the damn gate, 'No
trespassing' signs every fifty feet — "

"So? A caretaker — " Deke was sounding a little
pissed now, a little off-balance. A little scared for the
first time tonight, for the first time this month, this
year, maybe for the first time in his whole life? Now
there was an awesome thought — Deke loses his fear-
cherry. Randy was not sure it was happening, but he
thought maybe it was . . . and he took a perverse
pleasure in it.

"Nothing to steal, nothing to vandalize," he
said. "If there's a caretaker, he probably pops by here
on a bimonthly basis."

"Hunters — "

"Next month, yeah," Randy said, and shut his
mouth with a snap. He had also succeeded in scaring
himself.

"Maybe it'll leave us alone," LaVerne said. Her
lips made a pathetic, loose smile. "Maybe it'll just . . .

“Did it go under?”
LaVerne said, and there
was something oddiy
nonchalant about her
tone, as if she were trying
with all her might to be
conversational, but
she was screaming, too.
“Did it go under the raft?
Is it under us?”

you know . . . leave us alone."

Deke said, "Maybe pigs will — "

"It's moving," Randy said.

LaVerne leaped to her feet. Deke came to where
Randy was and for a moment the raft tilted, scaring
Randy's heart into a gallop and making LaVerne
scream again. Then Deke stepped back a little and the
raft stabilized, with the left front corner (as they faced
the shoreline) dipped down slightly more than the rest
of the raft.

It came with an oily, frightening speed, and as it
did, Randy saw the colors Rachel had seen — fantastic
reds and yellows and blues spiraling across an ebony
surface like limp plastic or dark, lithe Naugahyde. It
rose and fell with the waves and that changed the col-
ors, made them swirl and blend. Randy realized he was
going to fall over, fall right into it, he could feel
himself tilting out . . .

With the last of his strength he brought his right
fist up his own nose — the gesture of a man stifling a
cough, only a little high and a lot hard. His nose flared
with pain, he felt blood run warmly down his face,
and then he was able to step back, crying out, "Don't
look at it! Deke! Don't look right at it, the colors make
you loopy!"

"It's trying to get under the raft," Deke said
grimly. "What's this shit, Cisco?"

Randy looked — he looked very carefully. He
saw the thing nuzzling the side of the raft, flattening to
a shape like half a pizza. For a moment it seemed to be
piling up there, thickening, and he had an alarming vi-
sion of it piling up enough to run onto the surface of
the raft.

Then it squeezed under. He thought he heard a

40 Twilight Zone

noise for a moment — a rough noise, like a roll of can-
vas being pulled through a narrow window — but that
might have only been a creation of his overwrought
nerves.

"Did it go under?" LaVerne said, and there was
something oddly nonchalant about her tone, as if she
were trying with all her might to be conversational,
but she was screaming, too. "Did it go under the raft?
Is it under us?"

"Yes," Deke said. He looked at Randy. "I'm go-
ing to swim for it right now," he said. "If it's under
there I've got a good chance."

"No!" LaVerne screamed. "No, don't leave us
here, don't—"

"I'm fast," Deke said, looking at Randy, ignor-
ing LaVerne completely. "But I've got to go while it's
under there."

Randy's mind felt as if it was whizzing along at
Mach two or three — in a greasy, nauseating way it was
exhilarating, like the last few seconds before you puke
into the slipstream of a cheap carnival ride. There was
time to hear the barrels under the raft clunking hollow-
ly together, time to hear the leaves on the trees beyond
the beach rattling dryly in a little puff of wind, time to
wonder why it had gone under the raft.

"Yes," he said to Deke. "But I don't think you'll
make it."

"I'll make it, ' Deke said, and started toward the
edge of the raft.

He got two steps and then stopped.

His breath had been speeding up, his brain get-
ting his heart and lungs ready to swim the fastest fifty
yards of his life, and now his breath stopped like the
rest of him, simply stopped in the middle of an inhale.

He turned his head, and Randy saw the cords in his
neck stand out.

"Cisco?" he said in an amazed, choked voice,
and then Deke began to scream.

He screamed with amazing force, great baritone
bellows that splintered up toward wild soprano levels.
They were loud enough to echo back from the shore in
ghostly half notes. At first Randy thought he was just
screaming, and then he realized it was a word — no,
two words, the same two words over and over: "My
foot!" Deke was screaming. "My foot! My foot! My
foot!"

Randy looked down. Deke's foot had taken on
an odd sunken look. The reason was obvious, but
Randy's mind refused to accept it at first — it was too
impossible, too insanely grotesque. As he watched,
Deke's foot was being pulled down between two of the
boards that made up the surface of the raft.

Then he saw the dark shine of the black thing
beyond the heel and the toes of Deke's subtly deformed
right foot, dark shine alive with swirling, malevolent
colors.

The thing had his foot (“My foot!" Deke
screamed, as if to confirm this elementary deduction.
"My foot, oh my foot, my FOOOOOOT!"). He had
stepped on one of the cracks between the boards (step
on a crack, break yer mother's back, his mind gibbered
wildly), and the thing had been down there. The thing
had —

"Pull!" he screamed back suddenly. "Pull, Deke,
Goddamnit, PULL!"

"What's happening?" LaVerne hollered, and
Randy realized dimly that she wasn't just shaking his
his shoulder; she had sunk her spade-shaped fingernails
into him like claws. She was going to be absolutely no
help at all. He drove an elbow into her stomach. She
made a barking, coughing noise and sat down on her
fanny. He leaped to Deke and grabbed one of Deke's
arms.

It was hard as Carerra marble, every muscle
standing out like the rib of a sculpted dinosaur skele-
ton. Pulling Deke was like trying to pull a big tree out
of the ground by the roots. Deke's eyes were turned up
toward the royal purple of the post-dusk sky, glazed
and unbelieving, and still he screamed, screamed,
screamed.

Randy looked down and saw that Deke's foot
had now disappeared into the crack between the
boards up to the ankle. That crack was perhaps only a
quarter of an inch wide, surely no more than half an
inch, but his foot had gone into it. Blood ran across
the white boards in thick dark tendrils. Black stuff, like
heated plastic, jnilsed up and down in the crack, up
and down, like a great black heart beating.

Got to get him out. Got to get him out quick or
we're never gonna get him out at all. .. . Hold on,
Cisco, please hold on. .. .

-.1

TwUight Zone 41

THE

RAFT

La Verne got to her feet and backed away from
the gnarled, screaming Deke-tree in the center of the
raft which floated at anchor under the October stars on
Cascade Lake. She was shaking her head numbly, her
arms crossed over her belly where Randy's elbow had
gotten her.

Deke leaned hard against him, arms groping
stupidly. Randy looked down and saw blood gushing
from Deke's shin, which now tapered the way a
sharpened pencil tapers to a point — only the point here
was white, not black — the point was a bone, barely
visible.

The black stuff surged up again, sucking, eating.

Deke wailed.

Never going to play football on that foot again,
what foot, ha-ha, his mind blabbered, and he pulled
Deke with all his might and it was still like pulling at a
rooted tree.

Deke lurched again and now he uttered a long,
drilling shriek that made Randy fall back, shrieking
himself, hands covering his ears. Blood burst from the
pores of Deke's calf and shin; bis kneecap had taken on
a purple, bulging look as it tried to absorb the tremen-
dous pressure being put on it as the black thing hauled
Deke's leg down through the narrow crack inch by
agonizing inch.

Can't help him. How strong it must be! Can't
help him now. I'm sorry, Deke, so sorry —

"Hold me, Randy," LaVerne yelled, clutching at
him everywhere, digging her face into his chest. "Hold
me, please, won't you hold me — "

This time, he did.

It was only later that a terrible realization came
to Randy; The two of them could have almost surely
swum ashore while the black thing was busy with
Deke — and if LaVerne refused to try it, he could have
done it himself. The keys to the Camaro were in
Deke's jeans, lying on the beach. He could have done
it ... but the realization that he could have never
came to him until too late.

Deke died just as his thigh began to disappear
into the narrow crack between the boards. He had
stopped shrieking minutes before. Since then he had ut-
tered only thick, syrupy grunts. Then those stopped,
too. When he fainted, falling forward, Randy heard
whatever remained of the femur in his right leg splinter
in a greenstick fracture.

A moment later Deke raised his head, looked
around groggily, and opened his mouth. Randy
thought he meant to scream again. Instead, he voided a
great jet of blood, so thick it was almost solid. Both
Randy and LaVerne were splattered with its warmth
and she began to scream again, hoarsely now.

"Oooog!" She cried, her face twisted in half-
mad revulsion. "Ooog! Blood! Ooooog, blood! Blood!"
She rubbed at herself and only succeeded in smearing it
around.

Blood was pouring from Deke's eyes, coming
with such force that they had bugged out almost com-
ically with the force of the hemorrhage. Randy
thought. Talk about vitality! Christ, look at that! He's
like a goddamned human fire hydrant! God! God!
God!

Blood streamed from both of Deke's ears. His
face was a hideous purple turnip, swelled shapeless
with the hydrostatic pressure of some unbelievable
reversal; it was the face of a man clutched in a bear
hug of monstrous and unknowable force.

And then, suddenly, it was over.

Deke collapsed forward again, his hair hanging
down on the raft's bloody boards, and Randy saw with
sickish amazement that even Deke's scalp had bled.

Sounds from under the raft. Sucking sounds.

That was when it occurred to his tottering,
overloaded mind that he could swim for it and stand a
good chance of making it, while the thing was occu-
pied with what remained of Deke. But LaVerne had
gotten heavy in his arms, ominously heavy; he looked
at her slack face, rolled back an eyelid to disclose only
white, and knew that she had not fainted but fallen
into what the Victorian doctors had called deep-
swoon — a state of shock-unconsciousness.

Randy looked at the surface of the raft. He
could lay her down, of course, but the boards were
only a foot across. There was a diving board platform
attached to the raft in the summertime, but that, at
least, had been taken down and stored somewhere.
Nothing left but the surface of the raft itself, fourteen
boards, each a foot wide and twenty feet long. No way
to put her down without laying her unconscious body
across any number of those cracks.

Step on a crack, break your mother's back.

Shut up.

And then, tenebrously, his mind whispered. Do
it anyway. Put her down and swim for it.

But he did not, could not. An awful guilt rose
in him at the thought. He held her, feeling the soft,
steady drag on his arms and back. She was a big girl.

eke went down.

Randy held LaVerne in his aching arms and
watched it happen. He did not want to, and
for long seconds that might even have been minutes, he
turned his face away entirely; but his eyes always
wandered back.

With Deke dead, it seemed to go faster.

The rest of his right leg disappeared, his left leg
stretching out further and further until Deke looked
like a one-legged ballet dancer doing an impossible
split. There was the wishbone crack of his pelvis, and
then, as Deke's stomach began to swell ominously with
new pressure, Randy looked away for a long time, try-
ing not to hear the wet sounds, trying to concentrate
on the pain in his arms. He coukJ maybe bring her

42 Twilight Zone

He was just in time
to see Deke’s fingers
being puiied down,
it looked to Randy as if
Deke was waving to him.
Waving goodbye.

around, he thought, but for the time being it was bet-
ter to have the throbbing pain in his arms and
shoulders. It gave him something to think about.

From behind him came a sound like strong teeth
crunching up a mouthful of candy jawbreakers. When
he looked back, Deke's ribs were collapsing into the
crack. His arms were up and out, and he looked like
an obscene parody of Richard Nixon giving the V-for-
victory sign that had driven demonstrators wild in the
sixties and seventies.

His eyes were open. His tongue had popped out
at Randy.

Randy looked away again, out. across the lake.
Look for lights, he told himself. He knew there were
no lights over there, but he told himself that anyway.
Look for lights over there, somebody's got to be stay-
ing the week in his place, fall foliage, shouldn't miss it,
bring your Nikon, folks back home are going to love
the slides.

When he looked back, Deke's arms were
straight up. He wasn't Nixon anymore; now he was a
football ref signaling that the extra point had been
good.

Deke's head appeared to be sitting on the boards.

His eyes were still open.

His tongue was still sticking out.

"Oh, Ceesco," Randy muttered, and looked
away again. His arms and shoulders were shrieking
now, but still he held her in his arms. He looked at the
far side of the lake. The far side of the lake was dark.
Stars spilled across the black sky, a spill of cold milk
somehow suspended high in the air.

Minutes passed. He'll be gone now. You can look
now. Okay, yeah, all right. But don't look. Just to be
safe, don't look. Agreed? Agreed. Most definitely.

So he looked anyway and was just in time to-
see Deke's fingers being pulled down. They were
moving — probably the motion of the water under the
raft was being transmitted to the unknowable thing
which had caught Deke, and that motion was then be-
ing transmitted to Deke's fingers. Probably, probably.
But it looked to Randy as if Deke was waving to him.

• Waving goodbye. For the first time he felt his mind
give a sickening sideways wrench — it seemed to cant
the way the raft itself had canted when all four of them

had stood on the same side. It righted itself, but Randy
suddenly understood that madness — real lunacy— was
perhaps not as far away as he had thought.

Deke's football ring — All-Conference, 1981 — slid
slowly up the third finger of his right hand. The star-
light rimmed the gold, played in the minute gutters be-
tween the engraved numbers, 19 on one side of the
reddish stone, 81 on the other. The ring slid off his
finger. The ring was a little too big to fit down through
the crack,, and, of course, it wouldn't squeeze.

It lay there. It was 'all that was left of Deke now.
Deke was gone. No more dark-haired girls with sloe
eyes, no more flicking Randy's bare rump with a wet
towel when Randy came out of the shower, no more
breakaway runs from midfield with fans rising to their
feet in the bleachers and cheerleaders turning hysterical
cartwheels along the sidelines. No more fast rides after
dark in the Camaro with Thin Lizzy blaring out of the
tape deck. No more Cisco Kid.

There was that faint rasping noise again — a roll of
canvas being pulled slowly through a slit of a window.

Randy was standing with his bare feet on the
boards. He looked down and saw the cracks on either
side of both feet suddenly filled with slick darkness.
His eyes bulged. He thought of the way the blood had
come spraying from Deke's mouth in ah almost solid
rope, the way Deke's eyes had bugged out as if on
springs as hemorrhages caused by hydrostatic pressure
pulped his brain.

It smells me. Ik knows I'm here. Can it come^
up? Can it get up through the cracks? Can it? Can it?

He stared down, unaware of LaVerne's limp
weight now, fascinated by the enormity of the ques-
tion, wondering what the stuff would feel like when it
flowed over his feet, when it hooked into him.

The black shininess humped up almost to the
edge of the cracks (Randy rose on tiptoes without be-
ing at all aware he was doing it), and then it went
down. That canvasy slithering resumed. And suddenly
Randy saw it on the water again, a great dark mole,
now perhaps fifteen feet across. It rose and fell with
the mild wavelets, rose and fell, rose and fell, and
when Randy began to see the colors pulsing evenly
across it, he tore his eyes away.

He put LaVerne down, and as soon as his
muscles unlocked, his arms began to shake wildly. He
let them shake. He knelt beside her, her hair spread
across the white boards in an irregular dark fan. He
knelt and watched that dark mole on the water, ready
to yank her up again if it showed any signs of moving.

He began to slap her lightly, first one cheek and
then the other, back and forth, like a second trying to
bring a fighter Ground. LaVerne didn't want to come
around. LaVerne did not want to pass Go and collect
two hundred dollars. LaVerne had seen enough. But
Randy couldn't guard her all night, lifting her like a can-
vas sack every time that thing moved (and you couldn't

Twilight Zone 43

THE

RAFT

look at the thing too long; that was another thing).

He had learned a trick, though. He hadn't learned
it in college. He had learned it from a friend of his
older brother's. This friend had been a paramedic in
Nam, and he knew all sorts of tricks — how to catch
head lice off a human scalp and make them race in a
match box, how to cut cocaine with baby laxative,
how to sew up deep cuts with ordinary needle and
thread. One day they had been talking about ways to
bring abysmally drunken folks around so these abys-
mally drunken people wouldn't puke down their own
throats and die, as Bon Scott, the leader of AC /DC,
had done.

"You want to bring someone around in a
hurry?" the friend with the catalogue of interesting
tricks had said. "Try this." And he told Randy the trick
which Randy now used.

He leaned over and bit LaVerne's earlobe as
hard as he could.

Hot, bitter blood squirted into his mouth.
LaVerne's eyelids flew up like window shades. She
screamed in a hoarse, growling^voice and struck out at
him. Randy looked up and saw the far side of the
thing only; the rest of it was already under the raft. It
had moved with eerie, horrible, silent speed.

He jerked LaVerne up again, his muscles
screaming protest, trying to knot into charley horses.
She was beating at his face. One of her hands struck
his sensitive nose and he saw red stars.

"Quit it!" he shouted, shuffling his feet onto the
boards. "Quit it, you bitch, it's under us again, quit it
or I'll fucking drop you, I swear to God I will!"

Her arms immediately stopped flailing at him
and closed quietly around his neck in a deadly, convul-
sive drowner's grip. Her eyes looked white in the
swimming starlight.

"Stop it!" She didn't. "Stop it, LaVerne, you're
choking me!"

Tighter. Panic flared in his mind. The hollow
clunk of the barrels had taken on a duller, muffled
note — it was the thing underneath, he supposed.

"I can't breathe!"

The hold loosened a little.

"Now listen. I'm going to put you down. It's all
right if you — "

But put you down was all she had heard. Her
arms tightened in that deadly grip again. His right
hand was on her back. He hooked it into a claw and
raked at her. She kicked her legs, mewling harshly,
and for a moment he almost lost his balance. She felt
it. Fright rather than pain made her stop struggling.

"Stand on the boards."

"No!" Her air puffed hot and frantic against his

cheek.

"It can't get you if you stand on the boards."

"No, don't put me down, it'll get me, I know it
will, I know — "

Randy had forgotten
to strip off his watch
when he ran into the water,
and now he marked off
fifteen minutes.

At quarter past eight,
the black thing slid out
from under the raft again.
It drew about fifteen feet off
and then stopped
as it had before.

He raked at her back again. She screamed in
anger and pain and fear. "You get down or I'll drop
you, LaVerne."

He lowered her slowly and carefully, both of
them breathing in sharp little whines — oboe and flute.
Her feet touched the boards. She jerked her legs up as
if the boards were hot.

"Put them down!" he hissed at her. "I'm not
Deke, I can't hold you all night!"

"Deke — "

"Dead."

Her feet touched the boards. Little by little he
let go of her. They faced each other like dancers. He
could see her waiting for its first touch. Her mouth
gaped like the mouth of a goldfish.

"Randy," she whispered. "Where is it?"

"Under. Look down."

She did. He did. They saw the blackness stuff-
ing the cracks, stuffing them almost all the way across
the raft now. Randy sensed its eagerness, and thought
she did, too.

"Randy, please — "

"Shhhh."

They stood there.

Randy had forgotten to strip off his watch when
he ran into the water, and now he marked off fifteen
minutes. At quarter past eight, the black thing slid out
from under the raft again. It drew about fifteen feet off
and then stopped as it had before.

"I'm going to sit down," he said.

"No!"

"I'm tired," he said. "I'm going to sit down and
you're going to watch it. Just remember to keep look-
ing away. Then I'll get up and you- sit down. We go

44 Twilight Zone

like that. Here." He gave her his watch. "Fifteen minutes."

"It ate Deke," she whispered.

"Yes."

"What is it?"

"I don't know."

"I'm cold."

"Me too."

"Hold me, then."

"I've held you enough."

She subsided then.

Sitting down was heaven; not having to watch
the thing was bliss. He watched La Verne instead, mak-
ing sure that her eyes kept shifting away from the thing
on the water.

"What are we going to do, Randy?"

He thought.

"Wait," he said.

At the end of fifteen minutes he stood up and
let her first sit and then lie down for half an hour.
Then he got her on her feet again and she stood for fif-
teen minutes. They went back and forth. At quarter of
ten, a cold rind of moon rose and beat a path across
the water. At ten-thirty, a shrill, lonely cry rose, echo-
ing across the water, and La Verne shrieked.

"Shut up," he said. "It's just a loon."

"I'm freezing, Randy — I'm numb all over."

"I can't do anything about it."

"Hold me," she said. "You've got to. We'll hold
each other. We can both sit down and watch it
together."

He debated, but the cold sinking into his own
flesh was now bone-deep, and that decided him.
"Okay."

They sat together, arms wrapped around each

other, and something happened— natural or perverse, it
happened. He felt himself stiffening. One of his hands
found her breast, cupped in damp nylon, and squeezed.
She made a sighing noise, and her hand stole to the
crotch of his underpants.

He slid his other hand down and found a place
where there was some heat. He pushed her down on
her back.

"No," she said, but the hand in his crotch began
to move faster.

"I can see it," he said. His heartbeat had sped
up again, pushing blood faster, pushing warmth
toward the surface of his chilled bare skin. "I can
watch it."

She murmured something, and he felt elastic
slide down his hips to his upper thighs. He watched it.
He slid upward, forward, into her. Warmth. God, she
was warm there, at least. She rpade a guttural noise
and her fingers grabbed at his cold, clenched buttocks.

He watched it. It wasn't moving. He watched it.
He watched it closely. The tactile sensations were in-
credible, fantastic. He was not experienced, but neither
was he a virgin; he had made love with three girls and
it had never been like this. She moaned and began to
lift her hips. The raft rocked gently, like the world's
hardest water bed. The barrels underneath murmured
hollowly.

He watched it. The colors began to swirl —
slowly now, sensuously, not threatening; he watched it
and he watched the cSlors. His eyes were wide. The
colors were in his eyes. He wasn't cold now; he was
hot now, hot the way you got your first day back on
the beach in early June, when you could feel the sun
tightening your winter-white skin, reddening it, giving
it some

(colors)

color, some tint. First day at the beach, first day
of summer, drag out the Beach Boys oldies, drag out
the Ramones, the Ramones telling you that you can
hitch a ride to Rockaway Beach, the sand, the beach,
the colors

(moving, it's starting to move)
and the feel of summer, the texture; Gary U.S.
Bonds, school is out and I can root for the Yankees
from the bleachers, girls in bikinis on the beach, the
beach, the beach, firm breasts fragrant with Copper-
tone oil, and if the bottom of the bikini was small
enough you might see some

(hair her hair HER HAIR IS IN THE OH GOD
IN THE WATER HER HAIR)

He pulled back suddenly, trying to pull her up,
but the thing moved with oily speed and tangled itself in
her hair like a webbing of thick black glue, and when he
pulled her up she was already screaming and she was
heavy with it; it came out of the water in a twisting, grue-
some membrane that roiled with flaring colors — scarlet-
vermillion, flaring emerald, sullen ocher.

Twilight Zone 45

THE

RAFT

It flowed down over LaVerne's face in a tide,
obliterating it.

Her feet kicked and drummed. The thing
twisted and moved where her face had been. Blood ran
down her neck in streams. Screaming, not hearing
himself scream, Randy ran at her, put his foot against
her hip, and shoved. She went flopping and tumbling
over the side, her legs like alabaster in the moonlight.
For a few endless moments the water frothed and
splashed against the side of the raft, as if someone had
hooked the world's largest bass in there and it was
fighting like hell.

Randy screamed. He screamed. And then, for
variety, he screamed some more.

Some half an hour later, long after the frantic
splashing and struggling had ended, the loons began to
scream back.

That night was forever.

T he sky began to lighten in the east around
quarter to five, and heifelt a sluggish rise in his
spirit. It was momentary, as false as the dawn.
He stood on the boards, his eyes half closed, his chin
on his chest. He had been sitting on the boards until an
hour ago, and had been suddenly awakened — without
even knowing until then that he had fallen asleep, that
was the scary part — by that unspeakable hissing-canvas
sound. He leaped to his feet bare seconds before the
blackness began to suck eagerly for him between the
boards. His breath whined in and out; he bit at his lip,
making it bleed.

Asleep, you were asleep, you asshole!

The thing had oozed out from under again half
an hour later, but he hadn't sat down again. He was
afraid to sit down, afraid he would go to sleep and that
this time his mind wouldn't trip him awake in time.

His feet were still planted squarely on the boards
as a stronger light, real dawn this time, filled the east
and the first morning birds began to sing. The sun came
up, and by six o'clock the day was bright enough for
him to be able to see the beach. Deke's Camaro, bright
yellow, was right where Deke had parked it, nose into
the pole fence. A bright litter of shirts and sweaters and
four pairs of jeans were twisted into little shapes along
the beach. The sight of them filled him with fresh horror
when he thought his capacity for horror must surely
have been exhausted. He could see his jeans, one leg
pulled inside out, the pocket showing. His jeans looked
so safe lying there on the sand, just waiting for him to
come along and pull the inside out leg back through so it
was right, grasping the pocket as he did, so the change
wouldn't fall out. He could almost feel them whispering
up his legs, could feel himself buttoning the brass button
above the fly —

He looked left and there it was — black, round
as a checker, floating lightly. Colors began to swirl

across its hide and he looked away quickly.

"Go home," he croaked. "Go home or go to Cali-
fornia and find a Roger Corman movie to audition for."

A plane droned somwhere far away, and he fell
into a dozing fantasy: INe are reported missing, the four
of us. The search spreads outward from Horlicks. A
farmer remembers being passed by a yellow Camaro
"going like a bat out of hell . " The search centers in the
Cascade Lake area. Private pilots volunteer to do a
quick aerial search, and one guy, buzzing the lake in
his Beechcraft Twin Bonanza, sees a kid standing naked
on the raft, one kid, one survivor, one —

He caught himself on the edge of toppling over
and brought his fist into his nose again, screaming at
the pain.

The black thing arrowed at the raft immediately
and squeezed underneath — it could hear, perhaps, or
sense. . .or something.

Randy waited.

This time it was forty-five minutes before it
came out.

fternoon.

Randy was crying.

He was crying because something new had
been added now — every time he tried to sit down, the
thing slid under the raft. It wasn't entirely stupid, then;
it had either sensed or figured out that it could get him
while he was sitting down.

"Go away," Randy wept at the great black mole
floating on the water. Fifty yards away, mockingly
close, a squirrel was scampering back and forth on the
hood of Deke's Camaro. "Go away, please, go any-
where, but leave me alone . . . . "

The thing didn't move. Colors began to swirl
across its visible surface. Randy tore his eyes away and
looked at the beach, looked for rescue, but there was
no one there, no one at all. His jeans still lay there,
one leg inside out, the white lining of one pocket show-
ing. They no longer looked to him as if someone was
going to pick them up. They looked like relics.

He thought: If I had a gun, I would kill myself

now.

He stood on the raft.

The sun went down.

Three hours later, the moon came up.

Not long after that, the loons began to scream.

Not long after that, Randy turned and looked at
the black thing on the water. He could not kill himself,
but perhaps the thing could fix it so there was no
pain — perhaps that was what the colors were for.

He looked for it and it was there, floating,
riding the waves.

"Show me something pretty," Randy croaked.

The colors began to form and twist. This time
Randy did not look away. Somewhere, far across the
empty lake, a loon screamed. IS

46 Twilight Zone

ANSWERS TO FANTASY ACROSTIC #1

(page 22)

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think,
is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity,
and it was not meant that we should voyage far."

— [H. P.] Lovecraft,

A. LADYFINGER B. OTRANTO (Lovecraft held a
low opinion of Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto
(1764), the first gothic novel, calling it "flat, stilted,
and altogether devoid of the true cosmic horror which
makes real literature.") C. VOIDED D. EIDOLON
(The quoted sentence is from Lovecraft's "The
Outsider.") E. CIMMERIAN (A friend through
correspondence, Lovecraft was a great admirer of
Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan.) F. ROWE
G. ATTAIN H. FISTICUFFS (Lovecraft had a hand
in "The Battle that Ended the Century," an in-joke
spoof by his young disciple Robert Barlow.)
1. TINTED J. THINK TANK K. HODGSON (Love-
craft hailed William Hope Hodgson as "perhaps
second only to Algernon Blackwood in his serious
treatment of unreality.") L. ELDRITCH (A pet ad-

The Call of Cthulhu

jective of Lovecraft's, this example appears in his "The
Unnamable.") M. CHASTITY (A virtue of which
Lovecraft approved and^apart from the period of his
brief marriage— practiced.) N. ALCHEMIST (One of
Lovecraft's earliest stories was entitled "The
Alchemist.") O. LAST TEST (Lovecraft revised this
tale.) P. LOVEMAN (Samuel Loveman was a friend
of Lovecraft's during his New York sojourn.)
Q. OINTMENT R. FINIAL (The quoted passage is
from Lovecraft's "The Haunter of the Dark.")
S. CHAIN SAW T. TIFFANY U. HALLOWEEN
V. USHER (Lovecraft considered "The Fall of the
House of Usher" "Poe's supreme tale — and perhaps
the supreme weird tale of all the ages.") W. LATIN
PIG X. HOBBIT Y. UNWHOLESOME (Another
adjective that recurs in Lovecraft's fiction.)

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Twilight Zone 47

TRIPLE bill

RAY BRADBURY'S MAGICAL NOVEL
IS AT LAST ON FILM— WITH A LITTLE
HELP FROM THE MAGIC OF SPECIAL
EFFECTS. ED NAHA CHRONICLES
THE THREE-MILLION-DOLLAR FACELIFT.

E ighteen months ago, when production began on

Walt Disney Studios' version of Something Wicked
This Way Comes, hopes were high that this would
be the first faithful adaptation of a Bradbury work to hit
the screen. Bradbury himself had authored the script, and
director Jack Clayton (The Innocents, The Great Gatsby)
was taking great pains to come up with visuals that would
do the words justice. Eye-boggling sets were constructed on
the Disney lot. Press releases were handed out. A Christmas
1982 release was promised. And then . . .

Something strange happened to Something Wicked.
Now slated to appear in May, Something Wicked This
Way Comes is not the movie Disney intended to make
back in 1981. "It's a lot better," says director of special
effects /associate producer Lee Dyer. "We've captured the
essence of the book and retranslated it into visual terms."

During the past ten months, the movie has undergone
some drastic overhauling to the tune of three million
dollars. The process began last June when Dyer was asked
to view a rough cut of Clayton's film by studio execs who
felt it to be weak in spots. Dyer agreed with the honchos,
although he hastens to add, "Jack Clayton was short-
changed on this movie from the beginning. There were a
lot of projects getting more attention than his. EPCOT
[Disney's futuristic community in Florida) was the number-
one priority around here. Then there was Tron, on which
I was effects supervisor. As a result of all this other
activity, there was no one around to work on effects for
Something Wicked . "

After Dyer saw the floundering film, he made pages
of notes suggesting where effects sequences could be added
to strengthen its clout. He also figured out ways to spruce
up existing scenes, adding, in all, some twenty minutes of
new footage.

"We used whatever techniques we felt would
strengthen the story. The first sequence I developed
employed spiders. I hate spiders. They scare the heck out
50 Twilight Zone

of me. I used them to heighten the power of the carnival's
Dust Witch. In the book, the witch seeks out the boys in
a fairly traditional way. I came up with the idea that she
could send her essence to the boys' homes in the form of
ectoplasm. Once there, she'd transform herself into an
army of spiders. We used two hundred live tarantulas,
four hundred fake ones, and six mechanical models. I'm
still not over my fear of spiders, but I love that scene.

"You know," Dyer adds, "scaring audiences is nothing
new here. The studio has been doing it since Snow White,
if you think about it. We've simply taken that sense of
fantasy fright and done it with live action.''

After restaging a few more scenes. Dyer moved on to
one of the movie's most startling sequences. "We show the
carnival completely resurrecting itself without the use of
human hands, in a combination of ver^^ advanced
computer animation and hand-painted animation. It's the
first time a computer has been used to animate organic
material." In this scene, the carnival materializes out of the
smoke from a passing train and takes form by using
objects in an open field as a foundation. Train smoke
becomes ropes and canvas tents. Tree limbs grow together
to form a ferris wheel and a spider web mutates into a
wheel of fortune.

Yet another high point called for the carnival to be
sucked up into a churning storm. For that effect, a detailed
miniature was suspended upside down twenty feet above a
cloud tank. "1 showed that sequence to Jack last week,"
beams Dyer, "and he just fell over. We built the largest
cloud tank in existence, and our storm is really something
to see, bursting with lightning and energy effects. In fact,
we've redone the movie to the point where, as the story
progresses, our storm becomes one of the stars. It's the
'good' entity in the movie, an ever-present force, almost
godlike. If Mr. Dark is the devil, then our storm is the
force of light."

Aside from generating completely new effects scenes.

Dyer's gang went back to existing scenes and added hand-
generated animation techniques to underscore their power.

"There was a point where Mr. Dark was trapped on
his carousel, his foot caught on a stirrup, that made no
sense to me," says Dyer. "If Mr. Dark is a power to be
reckoned with, he could easily have gotten out of that fix.
So we added a bit where lightning strikes the carousel. It
completely energizes the structure. Electricity surges
through everything. The horses snort sparks. Now Dark is
still trapped on the carousel, but he's held there by an
overwhelming wave of energy."

In another episode. Halloway is cornered by Dark in
a library and tempted with the promise of a second
childhood. "Dark begins ripping pages out of a book,"
says Dyer. "Each torn page represents a slice of Halloway's
youth lost to him. After this page is torn, you can no
longer be twenty. After this page, you lose twenty-five.

"We've added animation to heighten the drama. When
each page is torn out, there's a blast of fiery light. The
page is red hot, cooling off only when it hits the floor.
With each blast, we added interactive lighting to Dark's
face, making him look even more demonic. The light also
reflects off Halloway and the books around him. Finally,
when Dark throws the book at Halloway, the entire
library is illuminated by a flash of light.

"It's touches like this that add to the magic. When I
first started working on that scene, Ray Bradbury was
worried that we'd ruin it. When he saw the finished
effects, he had one word for us; 'fantastic.' "

Dyer feels the extra work has paid off. "I showed the
spider sequence to six women from the studio last week," he
says. "One nearly fainted. One almost threw up. One had
her knees up to her chest — and that was an elderly ladyl
"On the way out, one of the women turned to me
and said, 'I can't believe this is a Disney film! ' " A wicked
laugh escapes Dyer's lips. "That's probably the biggest
compliment anyone could pay me!" 10

1. Lightning rod salesman Tom Fury (Royal DarK» warns young Jim
Nightshade and Will Halloway (Shown Carson artd Vidal I.
Peterson) ot a coming storm. Throughout Ray Bradbury's rtovel
lightning Is an ever-present threat to the carnival, revealing Its
true nature.

2. Bradbury poses before a miniature ot the Pandemonium c::amival.
A life-size carnival was built on a two- acre set nearby.

3. Jason Robards ploys troubled small-town librarian Charles
Holloway, whose relations with his son Will are clouded by a long-
ago act of cowardice.

4. Sneoklrtg Into the carousel to spy on Mr. Dark (Jonathan Pryce),
the boys are discovered by him and his assistant, Mr. Coogar
(Bruce Fischer)— and, to their surprise, are offered free tickets

to return,

5. Associate producer Lee Dyer and director Jock Clayton study the
Mirror Maze, in which Will Halloway Is trapped.

6. Mechonlcal-elfects designer Isidoro RaponI (Close Bncounfers)
displays a box of fake tarantulas he built to augment the two
hundr^ live ones used in a "Dust Witch" sequerx:e.

AMERICA'S FAVORITE MOTEL-KEEPER
IS BACK, AND HE'S JUST AS ODD AS
EVER. JAMES VERNIERE TALKS.TO
DIRECTOR RICHARD FRANKLIN, THE
MAN WHO'S SET NORMAN BATES FREE.

F or many, the thought of a sequel to Psycho,

Alfred Hitchcock's trend-setting 1960 classic that
has become part of the collective unconscious of an
entire generation of filmgoers, is tantamount to sacrilege.

But it is coming (tentatively in May), and it's coming in
the wake of a flood tide of sequels that are presently
ready for release or in development — films such as
Superman III, Supergirl I, Amityville 3-D, Sting 11, Star
Trek III, Halloween IV, Jaws 3-D, and Conan II.

Yt Psycho II is unique. It's been twenty-two years
since Janet Leigh took her fateful shower, and Norman
Bates has been languishing in a mental asylum ever since.
What would happen, thought the filmmakers, if Norman
were pronounced cured and returned to his motel? Would
he take a shower? Buy a dress? Kill again?

The task of directing Psycho II— a formidable one
given the classic status of its predecessor — was handed
over to Australian filmmaker Richard Franklin (Patrick,

Road Games), a 1969 graduate of the DSC film school
where he studied beside classmates like Randal Kleiser
(Blue Lagoon) and John Carpenter (Halloween). Not so
coincidentally, Franklin is an ardent admirer of Hitchcock,
and as a student he arranged retrospectives of Hitchcock's
films and established a friendship with the late master.

On June 30, 1982, principal photography began on this
five-million-dollar modest thriller under the aegis of
Universal Studios and executive producer Bernard Schwartz
(Coalminer's Daughter), with a script by Tom Holland (The

Beast Within, Class of '84), music by Jerry Goldsmith, and
a cast that includes Anthony Perkins and Vera Miles,
reprising their roles in the original, Robert Loggia as
Norman Bates's psychiatrist, and newcomer Meg Tilly.

Predictably, the plot of Psycho II has been cloaked in
secrecy, but this much is known: Norman Bates is
declared legally sane and released in spite of the
objections of Vera Miles's Lila, who was Janet Leigh's
sister in the original. Against the advice of his
psychiatrist, Norman returns to the motel and the old
Victorian frame house on the hill (the original sets were
used) and takes a job as a cook's assistant in a diner
down the road, where he finds himself attracted to a
pretty waitress and must come to grips with the social
changes that two decades have brought.

Franklin is certain that Hitchcock would approve of
his film. "Hitchcock does not frighten me," he says. "I
knew him personally and was even invited to watch him
shoot Topaz. Whenever I talked to him he would express
dismay because other filmmakers did not make movies the
way he did. Psycho, perhaps even more than his other
films, is an example of expressionistic filmmaking almost
without the necessity for dialogue. The story is told
through visual imagery, which is something Hitchcock
learned from German expressionists like Mumau when he
was a student in Germany in the twenties. That style is
something he taught me. I feel that I'm carrying on a
tradition and that what I'm doing is in the nature of a
tribute to him."

According to Franklin, Anthony Perkins did have a
few reservations about playing Norman Bates again—

"until he read our script," Franklin says flatly. He notes
that Perkins was once offered another Psycho II project
(Perkins was even asked to direct it), "but they didn't
have the rights to the material."

In addition, author Robert Bloch, who wrote the
original Psycho novel (inspired by the real-life atrocities of
mass murderer Ed Gein), h*s recently published a novel.
Psycho II, which has no connection to the Psycho II film.
"It's somewhat coincidental," says Franklin wryly. "The
Universal Studios may have been offered Bloch's story,
but they went with a new treatment."

The power of the original rested to a great extent on
its shock value. Now, more than two decades later, after
film audiences have witnessed far more graphic scenes,
Franklin may find that it's not easy to shock the average
filmgoer. "Psycho was the first film to combine nudity
and violence using action montage and clever editing to
get around the censors, and it scared the hell out of
people," says Franklin. "We did wonder, 'What can we do
now to have the same effect?' The answer was not to kill
someone with an axe in a hot tub. What's frightening
about Psycho was the futility and vulnerability of the
(continued on page 56)

1. Notman Bates (Anthony Perkins) Is conqratulated by his
psychiatrist (Robert Loggia) otter being declared legally sane
following twenty-two years In an asylum.

2. Back at the Infamous Bates Motel, still overshadowed by the old
house (both trom the orlglrK]l film), the psychiatrist stops by

to see that Norman is adjusting well to civilian life.

3. Norman anxiously cSmbs the stairs (where Martin Balsam bought
It in Psycho) to visit his old bedroom and the bedroom of his
dead mother.

4. Lila (Vera MUes)— wpose sister Marion (Janet Leigh) was one of
Norman Bates's victims In the original Psycho— returns to the old
Bates house and is drawn to the scene o( Psycho's climax, the
fruit cellar.

5. Having taken a job as a cook's assistant in a local diner, Norman
contemplates the allure of a certain utensil . . .

6. ... and forms a close relationship with one of the waitresses (Meg
Tilly, late of Tex).

.. j Twilight Zone 53

' »

iN PARAMOUNT'S VERSION
OF THE PAPERBACK BESTSELLER,
INTERFERING NAZIS STUMBLE ON
A FAR MORE ANCIENT EVIL
JAMES VERNIERE REPORTS.

G iven director Michael Mann's previous screen

credit. Thief, a brooding existential tale of an ex-
con's attempt to sever his ties with the underworld
by performing one last heist, Mann's involvement in
Paramount Pictures' upcoming film The Keep is a bit of a
mystery. Based on the successful (if generally run-of-the-
mill) novel by F. Paul Wilson, who acknowledges a debt
to H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Clark Ashton
Smith, The Keep is a gotlnic horror tale of a vampirelike
creature imprisoned in an ancient Carpathian fortress
whose every brick is inlaid with a tiny metal cross. When
Ncizi soldiers are stationed there during World War II, the
creature is inadvertently unleashed. The novel graphically
depicts the systematic slaughter of the Nazis and the
attempt to contain the cniature before it spreads chaos
and destruction throughout the globe.

On one level, Wilson's tale is a metaphor for war
and the bloodlust it generates. On another level. The
Keep aspires to be an epic tale of the eternal struggle
between good and evil as personified by the creature and
his adversary. Stylistically, the story is a hybrid, a mating
of two genres, the gothic and the war novel — a technique
that has been popularized in recent films such as Outland
(little more than a High Noon on lo) and Blade Runner
(which combines science fiction and film noir).

According to advance reports, director Michael Mann
has taken Wilson's basic jiremise and his Roumanian
setting and transformed the rest of the story into a lyrical,
highly stylized study of the sensuality of evil. The director
himself refers to the film as "an adult fairy tale that is
scary and romantic." Mann, who also wrote the
screenplay, admits that he has tried to play down the
1 horror element in favor of a more allegorical approach.

In a recent interview, Mann was eager to establish
that there are no vampires in The Keep. "The film has
nothing to do with Dracula, who was, as you know, a
world-class psychotic," sa:d Mann. "What the film does
i have to do with is how fables grow out of real events.

I The historical Dracula was a mass murderer; the Dracula
i of folklore is a supernatui'al creature that thrives on the
I blood of the living. Fables like this predate modem
: psychology. They're primitive attempts to encode deviant
. behavior and to warn people about the existence of evil
in the real world."

Mann, who is very careful not to reveal the plot of
his film in any great detail, explained that he wants to
portray the struggle between good and evil in the manner
that Jean Cocteau depicteiJ human love in Beauty and the
> Beast. "I wanted to do something stylized both in
cinematic and narrative form. Fairy tales have the power
to provoke very strong emotions because they
communicate on the level of unconscious fears and
desires. They have the power of dreams. So I decided to
stylize the art direction and the photography, but use
realistic characterization and dialogue."

In the novel, the creciture embodying evil has a name
; — or rather, names. Wher. he first encounters a crippled
Jewish scholar (played in the movie by Ian McKellan of
Broadway's Amadeus), the creature identifies himself as

Viscount Radu Molasar, an "Undead" and a contemporary
of Vlad Tepes, the historical Dracula. Later on in Wilson's
novel, we learn that Molasar is no vampire but an adept
named Rasalom that has lived and feasted on fear and
hatred since his origin in the mythical First Age. (In this
Wilson perhaps owes a debt to Lovecraft and his Great
Race.) We also learn that Rasalom's nemesis is a
superhuman warrior named Glaeken, who fought Rasalom
throughout time until, during the Middle Ages, he
successfully imprisoned him in the Keep. Mann has
retained the concept of Glaeken in the film; he's to be
played by Scott Glenn (Urban Cowboy, Personal Best),
and he's now referred to as "Glaeken Trismegistos" (the
"thrice powerful" epithet is Mann's invention), an
enigmatic stranger who somehow knows that the evil
within the Keep has been released.

The filmmakers, who sh«t The Keep on location in
North Wales and at Shepperton Studio Center under the
supervision of cinematographer Alex Thomson (Excalibur),
plan to cap the film with an extensive special-effects
sequence. Nick Alder (Alien) is supervising the mechanical
effects, while Wally Veevers (2001, Excalibur) handles the
opticals.

Whether or not Michael Mann can transform a
mediocre novel into a seductive fairy tale about the
sensuality of evil remains to be seen. The hopes he's
expressed for The Keep sound reminiscent of Paul
Schrader's pretensions for Cat People, and just as many
believe that Schrader failed with that film, so Mann may
find the fantasy genre frustratingly inhospitable to the
blending of horror and high style. fB

1. WermocM Captain Klaus Woermann (Jurgen Prochnow of Dos
Boot) stands atop a state cliff that overlooks the Keep, where his
men are being systematically murdered by an unknown force.

2. As the evil Molasar (Mike Carter) looks on, S.S. Officer Kaempffer
(Gabriel Byrne, BxcoHbufs Uther Pendragon) discovers the
creature's handiwork, the incinerated bodies of two storm troopers.

3. The enigmatic Glaeken Trismegistos (Scott Glenn of Urban
Cowboy), an immortal being In human form, begins to
metamorphose In preparation tor his battle with Molasar.

4. Glaeken Trismegistos, partially transformed Into his warrior
incarnation, struggles with the already transformed Molasar.

5. Bathed In an eerie blue light. Captain Woermann flees from the
Keep as the powers of Good and Evil do battle.

6. At the foot of a cliff In the Carpathian Alps stands Dr. Cuza (Ian
McKellen, Salieri In the original AmadBUs), a crippled Jewish
historian vrtiom Nazis have brought to the Keep to solve the
mystery of the murders.

Twilight Zone 55

(continued from page 53)

victims when exposed to the madness. The tonal quality
of the original is what makes it a classic. I can't promise
a scene to match the shower scene, but I can promise a
number of interesting sequences." Franklin does say that
Psycho II will feature "a little" nudity and "a little"
graphic violence.

"Norman Bates is an even more sympathetic character
in our film," he adds, "in that he's more pathetic than he
was. If it was sad to see such a repressed young man at
twenty-two or twenty-three, how much sadder will he be
if he is the same twenty-two years later? Life has been
cruel to Norman."

What does Franklin say to thosij who are
automatically skeptical of films that have numbers in their
titles? "All I can say is, judge for yourself. I'll go out on
a limb. 1 think that anybody who hjoks at our film
objectively will not be disappointed. I think that our film
evokes what we remember of the original, but, most
important, it is a film in its own right. What I hope will
happen is that the two films will merge and become one
larger film." 18

PeiWns, as lh« new tpdoted Noiman Bates, recelvos the tender
touch Meg TOy In hycho II.

ANTHONY PERKINS ON BATES 1 & 2

Anthony Perkins is a Psycho II), Perkins talked to us Perkins: Well, I don't mind, I was not concerned,

haunted man, and Norman about the sequel and his because people who TZ; Is it true that you were

Bates is his ghost. Ever since twenty-three-year relationship reminisce about the film offered another Psycho II and

Perkins's performance as the with Norman totes. always have a smile on their that you were even asked to

knife-wieldirig transvestite TZ: Do you ever have bad face, because they enjoyed direcdit?

schizophrenic in Alfred dreams about Norman totes? being taken in by the movie. Perkins: Yes, but you can

Hitchcock's classic film Psycho Perkins: No, Norman's a pal, TZ: What would Mr. Hitchcock offer someone anything, and

(1960), the actor and Norman really. I think he'd make a have to sgy about a sequel? if you don't have the rights

Bates have been inseparable good friend. He's loyal and Perkins: I don't know. The you can't make the film. I

in the minds of millions of sensitive and vulnerable and sequel was made with a must say that that wasn't a

filmgoers. So definitive was imaginative. great amount of care. No one bad script either.

Perkins in the role that he's TZ: But he does kill people. wanted to smudge anyone's TZ: How has Norman Bates

virtually become the icon of Perkins: He's not himself when memory of the original. It's char:ged in the twenty-two

psychosis in film mythology, he does that. been done with an eye to years between Psycho and

the standard against which all TZ What effect has Psycho had reverence. Psycho II?

subsequent film crazies have on your life and your career? TZ: Is there any truth to the Perkins.- He's older but wiser,

been measured. Perkins: Well, at first it was story that Hitchcock treated He realizes that he has a

For years Perkins tried to smothering— for the first actors like cattle? potential for stronge behavbr,

exorcise the ghost of Norman decade. In the secorb Perkins: He certainly had a whereas before he was only

but failed. Almost every char- decade, I grew to appreciate reputatton for it, and a lot of an innocent party protecting

acter Perkins played seemed it. My wife orrce said, "You've actors have reinforced that somexane he loved. He tries

— to filmgoers, if not to the got such resistance to this reputation. But he always hard to rehabilitate himself,

actor himself — extensions of movie and to people coming treated me perfectly compxan- He realizes that he has

Norman, for in films such as up and talking to you about it. iorrably — and collaboratively, something of a name arourb

The Fool Killer (1964), Pretty Why don't you just try getting as well. He even gave me town He wants to start over.

Poison (1968), Catch-22 behind it?" From that time on some money to buy the TZ: Did Ed Gein, the man who

(1970), Mahogany (1975), and I've found it much easier to clothes I thought would be inspired Robert Bloch's original

Winter Kills (1979) he offered live with. right for Norman. novel Psycho, ever indicate to

us a gallery of doomed misfits TZ: Why was Psycho such a TZ: What first attracted you you in any way that he'd seen

who are often more worthy of success? to the sequel? your performance?

our sympathy than their many Perkins: Because it wasn't Perkins: Just holding a script Perkins: Oh, I used to get lots

victims. exploitation or a rip-off. It was in my hands that said Psycho of let’ers from him, at least

Today, Perkins has declared a good tale with a great twist // was a blast. In additfon, I two or three a week. No,

a truce with totes. In fact, he's ending. Audiences liked found it a real page-turner. really I'm just kbdingl i really

playing hirn again in the up- Norman. He didn't bother TZ: Did you have any reserva- don't ktx)w.

coming Universal film Psycho anybody until people started tions about the project? TZ: Will Psycho II recreate the

II, a sequel to Hitchcock's bothering him. Perkins: Like what? seduc;tive ghoulishness of the

thriller directed by Australian TZ: It's said that the people in TZ: Like that the filmmakers original?

filmmaker Richard Franklin. Psycho II don't leave Norman were tampering with a classic. Perkins: I hope so, because

Now living in California with his alone. Perkins: Weil, if it had been a that seductive ghoulishness is

wife Berry Berenson and their Perkins: No, they just can't remake I might have worried the heart of the American

two sons, Elvis and Osgood (in leave him alone. about that. But since we were Gothb horror story. Seductive

a weird twist, Osgood plays TZ: And Psycho fans don't only respectfully suggesting a ghoulshness is a fine way to

Norman Bates as a child in leave you abne either. graft onto the original branch, descr be it. — JV

56 Twilight Zone

Illustration by Robert Morello

Dm GDq© [^D©D(iI GDq© ®^0mgi SDqqd’D’s

HOW LONG COULD A TREE KEEP ON DYING? HOW LONG COULD A MAN?

r—y s a child, I was terrified of the cherry tree growth lay in ranks so thick that the sounds of the set-

/ A \ field. I did not know what it was that affected tied world vanished, and children venturing there

Z_nJ me so— not that a child needs reasons for terror. heard nothing that had not been heard a thousand
I knew, though, that no other place on the vast farm years earlier.

sent such heart-stopping apprehension thrilling through Of course we told stories in those days, my

me every time I went there; the sensation that some- brothers and sisters and I, to the limits of our imagina-

thing waited, just beyond sight or feeling, something tions: stories of monsters and ghosts. Such creatures

wrong and frightening, there in the field of the great would have thrived in those deep swamps, and I could

dying cherry tree. have feared them, but I did not. We went there to pick

Many other places on the farm might seem flowers, and now and then we played hide and seek in

more threatening. There was, for instance, a deep the trackless wild. Fear of the swamp was an adult
wood that settled gradually into a tangled swamp, and fear, and it came later,
there were places far into the swamp where the maze Even on the way to that far corner of the farm

of untouched trees and fallen logs and primordial where the cherry tree field lay, there were places where

58 Twilight Zone

ml GSCPGQS Eo gG(o](o]Gff©D(3

I might have been afraid. The lane ran, at one point,
through a willov^^ swamp, and, by mid-summer, the
willows' yellow blossoms had vanished and tall sap-
lings, rising far above a child's sight, tipped across the
lane and sent rolling shadows over the tracks.

The willows grew thick and their roots went
deep to seek and hold moisture. A child knows, with-
out being told, that it is in these moist, steamy-warm,
unvisited places that odd things grow. Still, we were
not afraid; the willow swamp was our hideout, and the
curling trail cut an opening we used as a fort. We
knew we would not be surprised there. We talked
about the outlaws who hid out in the willow swamp,
but we did not believe in them, for we had invented

them ourselves. I walked on the lane barefoot, and per-
haps I laughed a little nervously sometimes, but I was
not afraid.

The field with the cherry tree standing alone,
out in the middle of it, was as far from the house and
barn as we could go without trespassing on someone
else's land. It was nearly three-quarters of a mile back
the lane, past a thousand landmarks, far for a child to
go, even on the magic errand of calling a father home
for supper. '

The field itself was bleak and almost barren.
Crops there were never quite as good as they should
have been. The slope where the cherry tree stood was
strewn with rocks, the broken bones of the earth, scat-

Twiliaht Zone 59

tered there as though the earth had fought a visceral
battle with itself.

But the lane that led there was a happy one, for
there were bluebirds in hollow posts along the way, and
there was our father at the end of the journey to call
home to supper. We could ride home with him as our
reward for ending his long day in the hot dry dust of the
field. Sometimes I would ride on his shoulders, or high
on the steaming back of one of the weary horses, or we
might bounce along on the iron seat of one of the
primitive machines he used to cultivate the land.

Even more than in the field, strangeness lay
within the tree itself; it was a cancerous claw clutching
at the sky, its bark flaking off like snake scales, twigs
littering the ground. It was a big tree, not the kind that
grows cherries for pies, but a wild cherry tree, and if it
had been healthy, its wood would have made that tine
red lumber prized for furniture. It may have been left
standing for that reason; someone might have hoped to
harvest it one day, to make furniture of it or sell it at a
good price. It was perhaps fifty feet high, the trunk too
large to reach around; several of its limbs had the girth
of a ship's masf. Once it had had the promise of be-
coming a majestic tree, but now it was a rotting wreck,
with spaces in the trunk where unknown things holed
up, whole branches dead, and, some years, hardly
more than a token of foliage. It was dying. But it had
been dying for as long anyone could remember.

Anything dying is an affront to a farmer, whose
business it is to nurture growing things. One would
have expected the tree to be taken down, not just be-
cause it was ugly, as a sick calf or a rotten tooth is ug-
ly, but because it was an obstacle in the middle of a
cultivated field. It broke the pattern of work, scram-
bled the lines of corn rows. Worse, it shaded out, even
with its pathetic growth, a big patch of ground, so that
whatever was planted near it grew thin and was hardly
worth harvesting.

The tree stayed, though, and I did not know
why, unless there was still some faint hope that it
might one day make a good log of lumber. I did not
think about it consciously, because a child does not.

Yet my terror of the field went deeper than the simple
unease of something being wrong.

It was on a crackling hot day in July that I
learned why the tree terrified me. It was my twelfth
summer, the last time of childhood, when the stirrings
of adolescence are felt and the threat of manhood is at
last revealed, yet the unpredictable energy of childish-
ness still prevails, rushing to the surface now and then
so that conflicting torrents tear a Doy between his bare-
foot past and his shod future. I walked the lane be-
tween the drying fields, beside dipping grain and the
dark green corn, past the mown hayfields where the
first promise of summer had been harvested and which
now lay dormant and where the cornstalks reached
toward fall harvest as I toward manhood. I trotted
around the swamp and ducked through the tunnel of
willows, crossed an opening, and turned to where my
father rode the horse-drawn cultivator through the
corn, and I saw the man hanging in the cherry tree.

He was black. Not black as a Negro is black,
but burned black, as Hell must be burned black by in-
fernal heat. He was black with age, black from long
exposure to the stains of time. His clothing was black,
and his feet were anchored 'in the wind by black boots,
which pointed down and marked the center of his eter-
nal wind-blown swinging circle, the pivot of his endless
dance. His hands were black, too, where they hung at
his sides, black as if from long contact with leather
stained by horse sweat. His nails were black as well,
and broken as if from some kind of struggle. One arm
hung oddly.

My gaze was drawn up and held beyond my
will, and I expected his eyes to be black, too. But then
I heard a crow caw somewhere, and I saw that there
were no eyes in the sockets. But the holes where the
eyes had been seemed black.

I could not scream, although 1 tried. I ran to my
father, who rose from his seat behind the cultivator,
and I leaped on him. He was startled. He stopped the
horses, which had not noticed anything because of
their blinders, and I turned him to the tree where the
man hung, but my father saw nothing.

Still, he was patient with me, and I rode his lap
to supper, but could not eat. My mother fed me warm
milk and toast with sugar, and I went to bed early.

And wakened late, in the darkness of the child-
forbidden hours, and heard voices, and crept to the
stairwell and listened.

"I went to see Uncle Hugh," my father was say-
ing. "You know how he is; if you buy him a beer, he'll
tell you stories. I think he makes most of them up, but
you can't be sure."

I could hear the noises my mother made as she
sewed. She had always had a special fondness for the
old man, who was nobody's uncle as far as we knew.
It was just some materal instinct reaching out from her
to his loneliness.

60 Twilight Zone

"At first, he didn't want to tell me anything.
Said nothing funny ever happened here that he knew
about. But after he'd had a couple of beers, he kind of
grinned at me— God, his teeth are black and awful,
those he's still got — and he started to laugh.

"Long back, not long after the Civil War, Hugh
said, something funny did happen on this place."

"My, how would he know that?" It was my
mother. "Is he really that old?"

"Well, like I said, I don't know if any of this is
true. But if he was a boy right after the Civil War, he'd
be in his late seventies now. Maybe so. I don't rightly
know how old he is.

"Anyway, as Hugh tells it, a traveling man
came through here one time. You know they were still
scouting out the county for pine lumber then, and
there was a hotel in town. So this stranger put up at
the hotel, and stayed for a few days, but he didn't
seem to be scouting for lumber or anything else anyone
could make out. Odd one.

"And then one day he paid his bill and started
to leave town. Some of the boys noticed that he was
leading two horses, and he'd just had the one when he
came to town. So because he was such an odd one,
they put it to him about them. Figured maybe he stole
them. But he wouldn't tell 'em anything, and tried to
just ride off. Well, Tiny Johnson — I guess you wouldn't
know him, but I just remember him and they called
him Tiny, because he was so big — Tiny jumped him
and the first thing they knew, the stranger had a
busted arm and was passed out.

"So they looked into his saddle bags, and they
didn't find any bill of sale or anything — not that every-
body had bills of sale in those days — but they did find
some money and a bottle of good whiskey, and they
shared out the money and drank the whiskey and one
thing led to another, and old Hugh's story is that they
took him down a back road, back toward the place
here, and they went down a lane in the dark and they
found a tree out in the middle of a field, and they
hanged him, higher 'n hell, from our old cherry tree."

My parents were silent for a moment.

"The thing was, they found out next day that
he'd bought that horse fair and square, and God
knows why he didn't want to explain himself. So the
boys, sobered up now, had to go out next day and cut
him down. Nobody 'd seen him all that time, he being
back in a field like that, but the crows had got his
eyes. The boys just threw the body back in the swamp,
never even buried it. They set the horses loose, and
pretty soon they turned up at somebody's farm that rec-
ognized them, and the farmer took 'em back to the
fellow who sold 'em to the traveling man in the first
place, and nobody ever came to inquire about it at all."

In the pause, I could tell that my mother had
stopped sewing.

"Then old Hugh, he laughed that creaky old

He was black.

Not black as a Negro
is black, but
burned black,
as Hell must be
burned black
by infernal heat.

He was black with age,
black from long exposure
to the stains of time.

laugh of his, and he winks at me and he says. Of
course, this has nothing to do with you or me.' "

"My God," my mother said, "He must have
been one of those 'boys.' "

"I didn't think of that," my father said. "I guess
so. How else would he have known? Not the kind of
thing the boys would have talked about, except among
themselves." He paused. "But maybe he made the story
up. Old men do, sometimes, just to have somebody
listen to them.

"Anyway," he said, with that voice of his that
ended talk about things, "like he said, it doesn't have
anything to do with us. I expect the boy imagined it,
too."

hat time is thirty years past. My father is long
dead, and I work the farm myself, and another
nearby that I bought a few years ago. I do not
believe in ghosts.

The cherry tree is still dying. I have never seen
a tree take so long at dying. It is a Goddamned
nuisance in that field, and if I get time this fall I will
take it down.

This morning, when I went back with the trac-
tor and wagon to get a load of stone for the fireplace
we are building in the new family room, the man was
hanging in the tree again. I had not seen him there for
a long time. It was early in the day when I went by,
and I saw that black dead broken body twisting there.
I could no more stop myself than I could on the first
day I saw him, thirty years ago. This time the crows
had gotten only one eye. Late in the afternoon, when I
went back again, the other eye was gone.

I did not take my youngest son, who is twelve,
with me. I don't know what he would see. He can go
along tomorrow. By then I know the man will be
gone. I do not think my son will notice that there are
no crows in the field, that they are busy, noisy, deep
in the swamp where the body lies.

I will not tell m.y wife of this. She is from the
city, and I do not want her to be frightened of the
country. IS

Twilight Zone 61

Illustrations by Peter Kuper

Confessions of a
freelance
Fantasist

by Isidore Haibltim

A SURVIVAL GUIDE IN THE FORM OF A MEMOIR,
BY THE AUTHOR OF THE TSADDIK OF THE SEVEN
WONDERS.

Part One, In Which Our Hero Learns that the
Journey from Coney Island's Boardwalk to
Easy Street Is Somewhat Longer than
Expected. ,

I t was an overcast afternoon in
March 1969. I was somewhere in
the mid-forties on Manhattan’s
West Side, standing in front of a
swanky restaurant. I was waiting for
my benefactor, a paperback editor who
had promised to take me to lunch — my
first lunch ever with an editor— and to
purchase a novel I had written.

I had sweated for this long-delayed
day; I had dreamed, schemed, and
plotted, and now it was finally here.
Could Easy Street be far away?

Easy Street and I, it should be
pointed out, are still far from buddies,
and my own origins lie a good distance
from the glitter of Publishers' Row.

MY UNLIKELY BACKGROUND
I was born in Brooklyn — a Brook-
lyn few would recognize today. Horse
and wagon peddlers roamed the streets,
their carts piled high with fruits and
vegetables, old clothing, or junk metal.
Uniformed sanitation men wielding
long-handled brooms cleaned up after
the horses. No garbage littered the
pavements. El trains rumbled overhead,
while trolley cars clanged below.
Neither were disfigured by graffiti. The
air, as a rule, smelled sweet and clean.
Automobiles all had running boards
you could stand on, and in winter the
snows seemed very high indeed.

Mother and Father first met in
famed Carnegie Hall, brought together

by a love of classical music. My dad,
who in those days earned more as a
chess and bridge player than as a fancy
leather-goods cutter (his sometime
trade), hobnobbed in the gaming clubs
with the likes of Jascha Heifetz, and our
Coney Island home was always filled
with the’ strains of Beethoven, Brahms,
and Schubert.

Between them my parents spoke
four languages perfectly; English, Yid-
dish, Russian, and Polish. But during
my early childhood, not an English
word crossed their lips in my presence.
I was the victim of a massive con-
spiracy. Both my parents were Yiddish-
ists who believed, with millions of
other Jews, that the Jewish people were
a nation — not merely, as some would
have it, a religion— and that all Jews
should speak Yiddish.

On the day my parents tried to
enroll me in Yiddish school, the teacher
heard me out and shook his head. "It's
too late," he told them. "He already
knows too much for the class." When
at last I ventured out on Surf Avenue,
within sight of the boardwalk and ear-
shot of the Atlantic Ocean, I found to
my consternation that all the natives
were chatting away in a totally incom-
prehensible language called English.

I began making the rounds of Yid-
dish clubs as a one-boy vaudeville act.

I wore a large green silken bow tie,
told jokes, and sang snappy songs — all
in Yiddish. At one of these recitals, the

When the author spoke only Yiddish.

director of th(! famed Yiddish Art
Theatre offered me a part in his up-
coming play on Second Avenue. My
mother, after much soul-searching, de-
clined the offer on the grounds that I
was too young for a full-fledged thes-
pian career. (Somewhere, in an alter-
nate universe, that great actor, Isidore
Haiblum, is bringing the house down.
No one has heai'd of English. Everyone
in the country speaks only Yiddish.)

Meanwhile, I was learning English
from my neighborhood pals as we frol-
icked under the boardwalk. There was
only one slight hitch to my mastery of
the Bard's tongue: to this day I speak it
with a strange foreign accent as though
1 were a fugitive from Minsk.

Aside from that, I grew up like
any other normal, healthy American
boy. Almost.

OFF TO THE STICKS

During the hectic years of the Sec-
ond World War, leather became a
scarce commodity, all of it channeled
into the war effort. Father, with Mom
and me in tow, moved to Detroit to
work in a war plant. The auto industry
in Detroit had been converted to the
production of jeeps, tanks, and can-
nons, and the town's population had
tripled overnight.

This was long before the Salk vac-
cine, and polio epidemics, abetted by
overcrowding, fieriodically laid waste
to the city. My mother, a disciple of
the noted health faddist and crank
Bernarr [sic] Macfadden, followed her
guru's advice in Physical Culture
Magazine and kept me out of school lest
some polio bug zap me. (The disease
was contagious, .of course, and I have

62 Twilight Zone

((lustration by the author

The author today.

often wondered if — again — in some
alternate universe my doppelganger
who did go to school isn't at this very
moment making his way down some
crowded street on crutches.)

When the truant officers came
calling, alerted to my afisence by keen-
eyed public school officials, my mother
promptly enrolled me in an Orthodox
yeshiva, a religious school governed by
rabbis with one eye fixed on the Torah
(the Old Testament) and the other on
heaven. The classroonris were small,
dusty, and crowded, the hours long
and tedious, and the course of study
right out of the Middle Ages. Only the
sounds of traffic outside reminded me
that I was still part of the twentieth
century.

My parents, I should add, weren't
even remotely religious; they were
Secular Yiddishists, another concept
entirely. But my dotty mom had her

and my mother kept me company. The
bucolic setting and absence of rabbis
seemed like an ongoing picnic to me.

To fill the long hours I took to
reading: Treasure Island, Robinson
CrusoBj A Tale of Two Cities, Huckle-
berry Finn, Jules Verne's Mysterious
Island, Nevada by Zane Grey, James
Hilton's Lost Horizon, the cartoons of
Peter Arno. Anything that came my
way, 1 read.

But the classics usually took a
backseat to popular culture, especially
in Detroit. Peculiarly clad characters in
multicolored capes and costumes dove
straight out of the comic books, radio
speaker, and silver screen of the Satur-
day matinee and right into my sense of
self. My true, hidden identity — which I
shared only with other eight- or nine-
year-olds — revealed itself most tellingly
in the nighttime hours as I lay in bed
waiting for sleep to overtake me. The
local newsboy always made his round
at this hour, calling out, "Free Press,
paper-r-r," his voice growing fainter as
he moved off through the city, until it
faintly faded into the night.

This voice, which still echoes at
me across the decades, sparked my
imagination, and, garbed in a cape,
boots, and a bright red or blue union
suit with a lightning bolt or a large S
emblazoned on my chest, 1 would fly
over the city's rooftops, battling crime.
In this world of darkest night, crime
occurred on every street corner. Thugs
with blazing pistols and tommy guns
stuck up scores of banks, candy stores,
and supermarkets, shot citizens by the
hundreds, tied traffic into knots, and
even menaced an occasional damsel.
The cops were either on the run or had

flying lad in cape and union suit stood
between mankind and utter chaos.
Thank God he was up to the job!

For how many years did I dream
myself to sleep in this way? Did I ever
suspect that these flights of fancy— and
the five- and sbc-page homemade comic
books I both painstakingly narrated
and drew, down to the last wham! and
splat! —were the first hesitant steps of a
future writer? Not on your life!

HIGHER EDUCATION

I was twelve years old. When it
came to the popular arts by now, I was
second to none. B-movies (Wild Bill
Elliot as two-fisted Red Ryder; Tom
Conway's urbane crime-fighter. The
Falcon; the madcap Laurel and Hardy
setting the world on its ear), the Sunday
funnies (The Spirit, Alley Oop, Li'l
Abner), mountains of comic books (The
Human Torch, Plastic Man, Captain
Marvel), and endless radio programs (I
Love a Mystery, Inner Sanctum, ]ack
Armstrong) filled my days. I was espe-
cially fond of a classic kiddie radio
program called Let's Pretend, which spe-
cialized in myths, magic, and adventure.
Every Saturday it came calling at our
home. One of its stars was Daisy Alden,
who often, with great relish, played the
witch, yid was to play, several years
hence, a prime role in my life.

Unlike most future fantasy writers,
I read little science fiction or fantasy in
my youth. In the early fifties, however,
I listened to radio's Dimension X and
its successor, X-Minus One. The stories
of Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury,
Robert Heinlein, and later Robert
Sheckley, Frederik Pohl, and their
confreres zoomed through the air-

reasons for inflicting this burden on
me. The long-bearded, otherworldly
rabbis couldn't have cared less whether
I showed up or not in the yeshiva, as
long as their monthly bill was paid.

Mostly I didn't show up.

But every now and then during
winter, when the bug took its annual
powder, there I was, an authentic, cer-
tified yeshiva bukher, seated dreamily
in a classroom whose archaic goings-
on, to this very day, I'emain a deep,
dark mystery to me.

SUPERKII)

During most of spring, summer,
and fall, I was on permanent leave from
the ' classrooms and from Detroit itself.
The first year, I was stcished at a farm
in upstate Michigan where the livestock

left town altogether. Only the brave waves, bringing me "From the far hori-

Twilight Zone 63

Confessions of a
Freelance Fantasist

zons of the unknown . . . tales of new
dimensions in time and space." (At
least that's what the announcer said.)
And I became hooked on the radio
shows. But to read the stuff, let alone
write it, never even crossed my mind.

One afternoon I strolled into a
Woolworth's five-and-dime store,
where a display of paperbacks caught
my eye, their covers depicting various
scenes of gore, violence, and mayhem.
Nothing new there— I thrived on the
stuff. Browsing, I came across a truly
striking cover: a hand-held pistol was
shooting a hole though a huge, air-
brushed golden badge that bore the in-
triguing inscription. The Return of the
Continental Op. Above the badge it
said "Dashiell Hammett" and below,
"A Dell Mystery." I shelled out
twenty-five cents and carried my prize
home.

The volume contained six Conti-
nental Op stories, and each was a
* marvel of action and mood. The^ were
out-and-out fantasies done up in fac-
tual detail. Their language was loaded
with slang, idiom, and argot which
went off like fireworks on the printed
page. And their first-person narrator, a
lone man pitted against hostile strang-
ers, was obviously — me!

DAISY ALDEN

Detroit, rabbis, and my annual
outings had long since palled, and I
breathed a heartfelt sigh of relief when at
last my family returned to its senses and
headed back to civilization — namely.
New York. I attended Manhattan's High
School of Industrial Art (today known
as Art and Design), bent on becoming a
commercial artist. Not for nothing had I
spent years drawing my own comic
books. In my junior term my lit teacher
turned out to be none other than Daisy
Alden, the former witch on Let's Pre-
tend. Daisy, a petite, perky lady with
large eyes, bangs, and a neat sense of
humor, was a distinguished poet as well
as an actress and teacher, and her
classes were something special. We read
Karel Capek's 1921 sf classic play
R.U.R. (the work that coined the term
"robot"). The Dada and Surrealist
movements we studied were, in Daisy's
hands, still aboil with life and excite-
ment. I wrote book reviews and short
stories, mostly humorous satires not too
unlike (as Daisy pointed out years later)
my future output, and ended up editing
the high school yearbook and literary
arts magazine. I enjoyed lit more than

My true, hidden identity.

drawing and decided then
and there to become a writer.

On graduation day I also walked
off with the English niedal, but not
without a hassle. The department chair-
man objected that I couldn't spell my
way out of a paper bag, but Daisy and
her cohorts voted him down. (After all,
as she later explained to me, Ernest
Hemingway was a lousy speller, too.)
This triumph of illiteracy prompted me
to forgo brushing up on my spelling
for the next couple of decades.

COLLEGE DAYS

I enrolled at CCNY and majored in
English. My lack of early schooling had
left a few gaps in my education. My
mastery of math was all but nonexistent,
and I carried three spelling variants of
every word in my head, all of them
wrong. My years of heavy reading,
however, put me in good stead. I zipped
through my English and social science
courses like a quiz kid, my lamentable
spelling deemed a mere eccentricity by
my profs. Little did they know.

I also edited the college humor
magazine. Mercury, which poked fun at
college life and other handy targets, a
sort of provincial National Lampoon.
To avoid the fate of my predecessors
who were suspended, I shrewdly excised
all dirty words from the magazine.

Meanwhile, I was taking honors in
Yiddish with Dr. Max Weinreich, who
happened to be the world's foremost
Yiddish linguist — and was also a fan of
none other than Mickey Spillane. We
strolled together to the subway each
afternoon chatting about hard-boiled
dicks and Yiddish lit. He urged me to
read Isaac Bashevis Singer in the orig-
inal Yiddish. I did, and bumped into all
my lost ancestors, who strutted and
cavorted through his pages. In years to
come I would reread Singer's works

time and again and always rediscover
my Yiddish self.”

ON MY OWN

By the time I graduated, I was
looking forward to a career as a profes-
sional writer. Easy enough for a hotshot
like me, right? I decided to emulate my
humorist idols, Elenchley, Thurber, and
Perelman, and proceeded to bombard
The New Yorker with short — and what
I considered to E)e side-splitting— essays
about my family, friends, and Upper
West Side neighliorhood — essays which
The New Yorker immediately shot back
by return mail.

Lowering my sights, I went off to
visit Harvey Kurtzman, then editor of
Humbug magazine, in search of a
freelance assignment. Kurtzman had
founded Mad in 1952, and the work
he did during the following three
years, before jumping ship in a policy
wrangle, had helped set the tone of
American humor in the sixties and
beyond. Kurtzn-;an would make an
ideal boss, I imagined, but I never even
got to meet him.

Harry Chester, Humbug's business
manager, was the only one holding
down a desk when 1 arrived at their
small Madison Avenue office. He
looked through the material I'd brought
along, mostly my old Mercury pieces,
and shook his head sadly.

"Let me tell you something,"
Chester said.

"Anything at all," I assured him.
"Anything."

Chester sighed. "Humbug is on its
last legs. We've got distribution prob-
*Look for Isidore Haiblum's interview
with Singer in an upcoming Twilight
Zone. — Ed.

64 Twilight Zone

lems — we're losing money on each
issue. We're not going to make it."

"Then there's no job?"

"Hell, there's almost no magazine."

"What about my work?" I asked.

Chester glanced clown at my
material. He grinned. "Not bad. But let
me give you a piece of advice."

I told him that I could use any
good advice he had lying around.

"Find yourself another line of
work," he said. "Anything except free-
lance writing. It's for the birds."

"The birds?"

Chester nodded. "There's no
money in it, son."

None of my professors at college
had mentioned this minor drawback.
Maybe they didn't know? The only
ones to have previously I'aised the issue
with me were the frantic parents of the
girl I'd hoped to marry. (I didn't.)

I left Chester's office more dis-
heartened than ever, but still deter-
mined to be a writer. If the great Ham-
mett could do it, why not I? Besides,
what would my ex-profs think if I
called it quits so soon? What would I
think?

HARLEM

All literary ambitions, however,
were quietly put on the back burner
when I received my draft notice. The
hitch was good for two years, which was
two years more than I wanted to serve.
I tried to enlist in the National Guard
instead, but I was given the brush-off.
The Guard was booked solid for the
next year.

It was midsummer. I could still
apply to grad school, thus buying
time, but it was too late to put in for a
scholarship. And I was flat broke.
Someone suggested that I get a job
with the New York City Welfare De-
partment as a social investigator.

The what?

I was totally ignorant of such mat-
ters. City College was no ivory tower,
but my closest brush with poverty dur-
ing my four years as English major had
been confined to the pages of John
Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.

In desperation I signed up with the
Welfare Department anyway. After a
three-week training period, I was dis-
patched to the Harlem V/elfare Center.
It was my job to interview dozens of
welfare recipients in tht^ir homes and
ascertain whether they really needed
the money Big Brother was dishing out
to them. At the same time, I entered

Freelance writing is for the birds.

NYU grad school, thus postponing my
military service.

My welfare charges were called
"clients," and nosing around in their
lives was a disheartening affair. Whole
families had been on welfare since the
Great Depression. The poverty I en-
countered was absolutely appalling.
Sour-smelling flats in ramshackle
tenements looked like war zones, with
cracked and peeling walls, broken fur-
niture, and shattered windows. Illness,
illiteracy, anger, and despair had sav-
aged these people. Armies of social
workers armed with blank checks and
scores of training programs could hard-
ly have been expected to make a dent
in such conditions.

In those days clients were not
allowed to own televisions, which were
considered luxuries. But half the homes
I visited had a tv set. To report it
would have gotten the previous in-
vestigator in Dutch for failing to note
this misdeed in his report; it would
also have put the clients in hot water
and tied me up for days in unseemly
and embarrassing investigations. Every-
one involved would have hated it. I
turned a blind eye to these and other
violations, and clients began to greet
me as "the good investigator." Finally
I'd made good.

A friend had been punching me in
and out on the time clock, so I was able
to attend classes at NYU. Instead of
"investigating" three clients a day, I
would check up on twelve and take the
next couple of days off. But when a fire
rendered a houseful of clients homeless
on the morning I was ostensibly inter-
viewing them, and they showed up in
tatters at the welfare center, I knew it
was time to put in for my retirement
papers. Still, I'd earned enough dough
to see me through the year and get me
into the National Guard.

As I went off for six months' ac-
tive duty, I received a gift from my
bosom pal Stuart Silver, a one-time
roommate and sometime collaborator
who would eventually land in the
history books by designing the famed
King Tut and Vatican exhibitions at

the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Stuart slipped me Robert Sheckley's
Ballantine original Untouched by
Human Hands and The Puppet Masters
by Robert A. Heinlein. In the service I
spent lots of time standing on' long,
seemingly immobile lines, and so could
give these books my full attention.
Now I became a fan.

I survived two months of basic
training at Fort Dix and four months
of duty as a medic in sunny San An-
tonio and, upon my discharge, re-
turned to New York, noting with some
dismay that I was back_ where I started
from — namely, unemployed and going
broke. I resumed writing small, unpub-
lishable pieces and got a part-time job
with a national patriotic institute. For
four hours a day I sat in a small, stuffy
cubbyhole, stuffed envelopes with
various pamphlets extolling the virtues
of democracy, and sent them off to in-
quiring school kids. The job — and the
entire institute — consisted of this and
nothing more. To lessen the tedium, I
installed a radio, turned to WQXR,
and caught Brahms, Mozart, and Rach-
maninoff as I worked. It didn't help. I
took to drawing little grinning Uncle
Sams in top hats and stripes, prancing
about and waving. I captioned these,
"Hi, ther^!" and inserted them in the
envelopes along with the pamphlets.

An envelope was misaddressed
and returned to my boss, an ex-
colonel. He called me into his office. In
his hand was one of my Uncle Sams.

"Did you do this?" he demanded.

I admitted it.

"YOU'RE FIRED!"

I turned to go.

"You've got the wrong attitude,
Haiblum," the colonel yelled after me.
"You won't get far in the job market."

/ took to drawing little
grinning Uncle Sams.

..I

Have an agent find you an editor.

The colonel was right.

Following the guidelines laid down
by my college English prof, Irwin
Stark, I continued to stay far away
from any job requiring writing. ("It will
only drain you," Stark had warned
me.) I found work, briefly, as a Cana-
dian booking agent for a bunch yf folk
singers, and ended up spending hours
on the long-distance phone with coffee-
house managers throughout Canada,
pleading vainly for engagernents. I
joined a part-time survey on sex spon-
sored by Columbia University, and
another on health, happiness, and men-
tal stability, while I waited for fame
and fortune to find me. (They didn't.)
These jobs all look swell when adorn-
ing a dust jacket, but in real life they
are strictly the pits.

When the Health Department sud-
denly phoned me — my former survey
boss had recommended me — and of-
fered me a full-time post which en-
tailed lots of sitting around, I grabbed
it. And over a period of months, while
waiting for work to materialize on my
desk or riding the subway to and from
the office, I wrote my first novel, a
tough-guy thriller somewhat in the
style of my hero, Dashiell Hammett.

I had been hoarding my paychecks
for months and had enough to live on
for at least a year. The Health Depart-
ment was driving me batty; each day
in the office seemed a day wasted. I
was simply not suited for a nine-to-five
stint. I quit my job, and at last was
convinced that my novel would sell.
Even if it didn't. I'd have time to write
another, and surely that one would
sell. Unfortunately I knew no one in
publishing. I had been knocking
around for years as a would-be writer,
but it had never occurred to me to
make friends with anyone in publish-
ing. How about that?

THE BUSINESS

1 pause here, for it occurs to me
that many readers of this piece may
themselves be beginning writers who
share this problem.

There is more than one way of
breaking into the field, I am glad to
report. But before noting any, a cau-
tionary word from the industry itself
might be in order.

According to the New York
Times, publishers complain that "theirs
is an industry which turns out the
equivalent of 40,0G0 new products a
year, loses money on eighty percent of
them, and earns on average less than
half of what it could earn simply by
investing in municipal bonds rather
than books." Neat, eh?

The Times also quotes writers'
groups to the effect that their members
earn an average (give or take a buck)
of $5,000 a year.

Frankly, I believe neither writers'
groups nor publishers. But I am dis-
couraged by their figures nonetheless.

If you are not discouraged and are
still intent on being a writer, here's the
simplest way of getting into the busi-
ness; mail your unsolicited masterpiece
to the publisher of your choice.

This method, though, is not highly
recommended, for you will land in the
slush pile, where you will either be ig-
nored or come to the attention of the
editorial assistant, which is virtually
the same thing.

Other and better methods are;

Have a writer send you to his
agent or editor. Have an editor find
you an agent. Have an agent find you
an editor.

You can meet writers, agents, and
editors through a buddy, at conven-
tions, and even at the neighborhood
bar sometimes. And you can always
ask a friend to ask a friend, etc. Right?

Recommendations are the key to
all three groups.

Agents who charge a fee for evalu-
ating your work are more apt to give
you the business than get you into it.
The few in this category who are on
the up-and-up vvrill still not personally
peruse your ms. Again, you'll be in the
hands of the assistant office boy. And
paying for the privilege to boot.

I was lucky. My old friend Stuart
Silver came to my aid. His wife had an
uncle who was a stockholder of Lancer
Books, a small, now defunct paperback
house. (You w'ere expecting maybe
Farrar, Straus &: Giroux?) This uncle,
whom I never even met, set up an
appointment with Lancer editor-in-
chief Larry Shaw.

THE LONG WAIT

Shaw is currently rumored to be an
agent in Hollywood. But in the fifties
he wrote science fiction and had edited
two well-thought-of sf anthologies. My
Hammett-like novel — replete with dated
thirties slang, improbable events, and
outlandish characters — appealed to
Shaw, who, no doubt, had been reared
on similar genre shenanigans. He of-
fered to buy it. But his boss, who
owned the company, had been check-
ing sales figures, and noted that
mysteries were doing poorly that year.
He vetoed the sale. "Thus my first — and
what turned out to be my only — offer
for this opus went by the board.

But before too long, Shaw had left
Lancer, moved to Dell, and asked to
see me about purchasing a novel.
Could fame and fortune be far behind?

I waited for Larry Shaw, my bene-
factor, that spring day for close to an
hour, but he never did appear. My
worst fears seemed to be realized.
Shaw had changed his mind. As I
headed home, I saw my career in
ruins, finished before it even began.

But Shaw phoned the next day.
His son had been in a traffic accident,
and he — Shaw — had had to rush to the
hospital . . . Another lunch date was
set, one that was kept. I sat in a restau-
rant, not sure who was supposed to
pay the bill, writer or editor, and lis-
tened to Shaw tell me what turned out
to be rather fatetul news; He could no
longer buy my private-eye novel, or for
that matter any mystery or detective
story I might write, because editor
Shaw's sole province at Dell was — of
all things — science fiction, fg

— To be continued

66 Twilight Zone

THE SITUATION WAS AS SIMPLE AS AN E.C. COMIC.
UNFORTUNATELY, HARRY WAS A BIT SIMPLE, TOO!

0 feel bad because I'rn always making trouble for and it was a Sunday and we went on a picnic. It

people. I know the reason, too. It's because I'm started to rain, oh boy it was raining hard, so Mother

simple-minded. The kids at school teased me be- and Dad got in the back seat to finish the sandwiches,

cause I couldn't pass the exams. Mother told me not to and they were talking and not paying too much atten-

pay any attention when kids called me retarded. But tion to me in the front seat. I thought it would be nice

from the way she looked, I knew I was doing some- to let them enjoy the picnic and not bother them about

thing wrong. Even though I'm fifty years old now, no driving home, so I started the engine by turning the

matter how hard I try. I'm sometimes still a bother to key. Then I put the lever on the "D" and stepped on

people. Mostly I upset jjeople I care about, like my the gas, just like Dad always did. Dad yelled because

friend Freddie and my wonderful wife Virginia. someone had planted a tree too close to the side of the

The worst time I was a bother to my Mother road and we had a bad accident. Mother and Dad got

and Dad happened when I was fifteen. We had this car killed, and that tree hurt me pretty bad, too. I lost an

• t Twilight Zone 67

Illustration by Nicola Cuti

eye and hurt my leg and my face got burned. I still
have the scars.

After I got out of the hospital, I got a nice glass
eye and went to a special school for a while. When I
got out I went to live with Auntie. She's dead now,
but she told me things like I shouldn't drive cars be-
cause it's dangerous and can get me into trouble. So I
don't drive. I always take buses to work, except for
when Virginia had a car and she drove me to the com-
pany and back. She used to be real pretty.

You want to know how I met Virginia? I got a
job in the office of Morris Industries^ They make file
cabinets, and I work as a file clerk. Everybody thinks
that's pretty funny — file clerk in a file factory — so it
must be. Virginia, she was doing some typing in the
office when I got hired. She used to tell me she wasn't
paid enough. I could tell right off she liked me, because
she said I was the only idiot she could complain to
without getting into trouble. Our supervisor doesn't
like complaints.

I told Virginia I was sure glad I didn't need
more money. In fact, I put most of it in the bank.

"Big deal, Harry," Virginia said to me. "You got
three thousand saved, I bet."

"No," I told her. "I got one hundred and fifty
thousand saved." She laughed and said, "On your
salary?" That's what she asked me, like she didn't
believe me.

Well, you should have seen her face the next
day when we were alone and I showed her the bank-
books. Of course, I told her how a lot of the money
came from what Mother and Dad and Auntie left for
me, but every two weeks I put even more money in. I
took out house taxes and clothes and food money, and
the rest went in the bank.

ell, oh boy, I could tell right away that Vir-
ginia liked me better than ever. Later that
morning she asked me to go out on a date,
and she explained what a date was. It was fun. I'll tell
you.

The supervisor told me to stay away from Vir-
ginia because aU Virginia wanted was money. I told
Virginia that, and she explained that the supervisor
was a crazy lady and I shouldn't tell her anything
about our dates because she didn't have a man of her
own and she would be jealous. Virginia asked me if I
could keep our dates a secret.

Oh boy, was that fun, keeping it a secret. I
didn't even tell the supervisor about Freddie, my best
friend. He wasn't really my friend at first. He was Vir-
ginia's friend, but he liked me and he became my best
friend. In fact, he was the only real friend I ever had,
though I don't get to see him very much anymore.
There is a fellow at work, Joe, and we have a cup of
coffee once in a while, but he isn't a real friend. A real
friend talks to you for more than five minutes. Freddie
used to talk to me for more than fifteen minutes,
68 Twilight Zone

telling me how lucky I was th.at a good-looking girl
like Virginia was crazy about mie.

Oh boy, I couldn't believe how lucky I was to
have a girl like Virginia crazy about me and a friend
like Freddie who said he would be my best man when
Virginia asked me to marry her. We all drove to Reno,
and Virginia and me got mari'ied in this Courtship
Chapel and it only cost thirty-five dollars, and then
Virginia and Freddie and me drove back. We used Vir-
ginia's car, because since age fifteen I don't drive
anymore.

Well, when we got back to town, Virginia
moved into my house because it was bigger than her
apartment. I'm glad we got msirried, but I don't see
what the fuss is all about. The only difference between
married and not married is you live in the same house
and you spend a lot of time together. My friend
Freddie spent a lot of time in our place with Virginia
and me, and that was nice too. I miss Freddie almost
as much as I miss Virginia.

My wife did two wonderful things for me.
Every night she fixed me a drink of whiskey and sugar
called an old-fashioned, and she gave it to me before I
went to sleep. It sure tasted good.

The other wonderful thing Virginia did was to
tell me how to be happy. "Do you ever feel discour-
aged, Harry?" she asked me, and I told her no. I could
see she was real disappointed, so I said, "What do you
mean?" She said that everyone gets discouraged, just
like the day before, when I wanted to finish filing some
reports but the janitor turned out the lights. I was mad
and had to take the bus home, since Virginia had al-
ready left with her car. She could tell I was mad at the
janitor, and she told me that's v/hat being discouraged
was.

"Oh, sure," I said, and I could see that I made
her happy.

"Well, Harry," she said, "you want to learn
how to stop being discouraged?"

I said, "Of course." I'm simple-minded, not

stupid.

"You gotta write down what you're discouraged
about, Harry," she told me, "and then it will go away
and be all better." I said, "Good!" and she told me
what to write down. / miss Mother and Dad and
Auntie and for 32 years all I do is work. I'm very tired
and I don't want to go on. I'm sorry. Harry. That's
what I wrote on the piece of paper, and Virginia took
it and put it in a drawer.

"Now you'll see, Harry," she said to me. "You
won't be discouraged anymore."

Oh boy, that made me happy. I still remember
the night I wrote that down, and I remember when
Virginia' brought me my old-fashioned later on. It
tasted funny, but it was still good.

Well, I tell you, something must have been
wrong with that drink, because the next thing I know
I'm lying on a table in the funeral home and I don't

Two hours

after they buried me
I began to feel
very cramped^
so / began to try to get
out of the coffin. ,

have any clothes on. Ccin you believe it, they thought I
was dead! I once saw on television where some man
they thought was dead sat up in this funeral home and
scared everyone. It was the same with me, except I
couldn't sit up. I tried, but it was like I was paralyzed.

I couldn't sit up and I couldn't even help the man and
lady dress me for my funeral in my black suit. But
boy, when I think about it now, was I lucky! If I lived
in a city instead of a small town they would have cut
me up first to see what I died of, and then I really
would have been in trouble, but the coroner said it was
okay to bury me right ciway because my note proved it
was suicide. Wasn't that dumb of him?

Anyway, it was a very nice funeral. Small but
nice. Besides Virginia and Freddie and the minister, my
supervisor was there, and I could hear her crying even
if I couldn't see her. Joe was there, too, even though he
isn't a real friend, and so was Auntie's lawyer. I heard
the minister say that life's burdens were over for me
and I would find eterrial peace, and I heard Virginia
say to the minister before the funeral even started how
awful it was for her having a husband of only four
months take poison. Wasn't that dumb of her? She
didn't even know the difference between poison and
funny-tasting whiskey.

Anyway, after the service, they put the coffin in
a hearse and drove to the cemetery. Oh, boy, I sure
am glad I told Auntie's lawyer that I wanted to be
buried! When I got burned in the car so many years
ago, I knew I didn't ever again want anything to do
with fire, and the lawyer told that to Virginia when she
wanted to have me cremated. He told her that my
wishes were to be respected, that's what he said, and of
course Virginia agreed.

Well, when I felt that dirt coming down on top
of the coffin, I said to myself, "You've got yourself
into a fine mess, Harr}'." I know now what was hap-
pening. I wasn't taking any breaths that you could see,
not deep breaths or any thing like that. It was like those
religious men in India v/ho put themselves into a trance
and can stay buried for a long time. I even saw on
television where some man could stay in a box in the
bottom of a swimming pool. Well, that's what I was
doing in that coffin.

I don't know about those religious men, but let
me tell you, two hours after they buried me I began to
feel very cramped, so 1 began to try to get out of the
coffin. Oh boy, was I glad when I was finally able to
move! And you can't say old Harry wasn't born under
a lucky star. My funeral was late in the afternoon, so
they didn't pack in as much dirt as usual. I guess they

were going to finish the job in the morning. But I still
had to work so hard that, right near the end, my glass
eye fell out. I didn't waste any time looking for it un-
derground, let me tell you. I'm simple-minded but I'm
no fool.

hen I finally got out, I was a mess. And
would you believe it, as long as I've lived in
our town, I still got mixed up. Instead of
heading for the cemetery road, I stumbled towards the
woods behind the cemetery. I was tired, too, let me tell
you. So I slept a few hours, and when I woke up, oh
boy, did I feel good! It was cold and dark and rainy
and it was very windy, but I didn't mind. The air
smelled so good. I knew how happy Virginia and
Freddie would be to find out that I wasn't really dead,
so I started out for the house. By this time I knew
where I was, and it was only thirty minutes from
where I live.

I just walked and walked, and pretty soon I was
at the house. I was glad to be out of the rain, let me
tell you. I got the key from under the stairs. That was
another good thing Virginia taught me. I used to lose
keys and then I couldn't get into the house, but she
showed me where to hide an extra key. I knew I
looked a mess with my black funeral suit soaked and
my limp worse because of the rain and my empty eye
socket all red, but what difference did that make?
Virginia would still be happy. I walked up the 3tairs
real quietly so the surprise Vould be better than ever.

I could hear Virginia and Freddie laughing in the
bedroom, and I wondered why they were so happy.
Maybe they had already found out I was alive. That
would have spoiled my surprise. But they were laugh-
ing about something else, I guess. I slowly turned the
doorknob to the bedroom, and they became real quiet.
I don't know who they were expecting, but it wasn't
me. When I opened the door wide and shouted, "I'm
back!" they both screamed. It was a funny thing that
on a cold and rainy night, they were both in bed with-
out any clothes on. I guess they were holding onto
each other because they missed me so much, but they
ruined my surprise because they kept on screaming.

It's nice that my wife and my best friend are
together now. Of course, they're not really together,
because when I go to visit them, they're in separate
wings of this place they call a sanitarium. They both
have white hair — maybe they drank some of that
funny tasting whiskey, too — and Virginia isn't pretty
anymore. Also they don't talk, which is kind of silly. I
tell Virginia to write it down if she is discouraged and
she will feel better, but she never listens to me.

I miss having Virginia at home, and I miss
Freddie too, but you know what I miss most of all?
Oh boy, will this surprise you! I miss those old-
fashioneds. But I don't drink anymore. After what hap-
pened to me, I know you can't trust whiskey. It can go
bad on you. 10

Twilight Zone 69

A CAUTIONARY TALE ON THE IMPORTANCE-
NAY, NECESSITY— OF MAKING YOUR BED.

^ Ik jt

"What is it, dear?" This was spoken very
innocently.

"Tuck sheet! P'eese!" Two round dark eyes
peered accusingly over the top edge of the sheet.

With a sigh, the mother tucked the sheet tightly
beneath the side of the lower end of the mattress.
"Why in the world you have to have that top sheet
tucked that way is beyond me." But it was done now,
and the eyes had closed in sleep.

"Barbara, you know you want to go. All the
rest of the girls are going — Doctor Jarvis's daughter,
the judge's girl. All the best families, too. I just don't
understand you!"

"I just don't feel comfortable. I don't like sleep)-
ing on the floor, and they talk all night. I don't par-
ticularly like any of them, anyway. And you won't let
Annie Wimple come spend the night with me."

"But her people are sharecroppers!"

Barbara sighed and pretended to busy herself
with her lessons. Her mother would never understand.
She had to sleep in a bed, an actual bed, with the sheet
tucked tightly at the lower end. Otherwise there was
no rest, no security for her in the dark hours of the
night. Her mother, infuriated at the illogic of her ac-
tions, would have forced her to change, but for the in-
tervention of her father.

"Everybody's got somethin' they're set on or
afraid of," he had said. "This seems like a pretty small
thing. Nothing unreasonable to take care of. You just
let her tuck in her sheet like she wants to."

And that had been that.

70 Twilight Zone

"Jim, I ... I have to tell you something. You'll
think I'm silly. Mama always did. But before we marry
I have to let you know, because it means a lot to me."

He looked down at her, his blue eyes quizzical.
"You sleep with a teddy bear!" he teased. "No? Then
you have a very large dog that's used to sharing your
bed."

"Silly!" She stood on tiptoe and kissed his chin.
"No. It's such a little thing. I have to have the top
sheet tucked in tightly on my side of the bed. I have
always had a terror ..." she looked about to make
certain that her mother was still in the kitchen ". . . of
having my foot hang over the edge of the bed. Now I
know! I know! It's childish. It's Freudian something-or-
other. But I cannot go to sleep without that sheet
tucked in good and tight."

He smiled. "I think we can manage that ... at
least for now. Eventually I think I'll be able to talk you
into realizing what causes that^ p larticular need. Then
you won't need it anymore."

ou're right. I see it. It makes so much sense.
Insecurity can do odd things to us, can't it?
And to think I've spent all these years tuck-
ing in that sheet to keep my foot on the bed! It seems
so silly now."

She sat on the bed and swung her feet onto the
mattress. "It really is too hot for pulling up the top
sheet, too. I know you've suffered from the heat, even
with the fan going. You're a nice, patient person, love."

He took his place beside her, stretching himself on
the cool linen. "I've got a bright wife." He chuckled.
"I have had many a patient who couldn't see cause and

effect nearly as soon (jr as clearly as you have done, as her hand gripped his pajamas at the shoulder.

Now you're free of that little worry. I suppose I see "It got me!" she screamed, and the cloth in her

myself, actually, as some sort of Great Emancipator, hand tore as she was dragged away from him, toward
freeing everyone I can from their niggling little slaveries the edge of the bed.

to fears and phobias." Jim grabbed her hands. "I've got you. It's just a

The lamp snapped off. The sound of crickets nightmare!" But his words caught in his throat as he
from their large lawn filled the night, and Barbara saw her pulled away from him, and he was forced for-
thought sleepily how good it was to have married for ward in order to hold on.

love and to have found money, too. She dozed, her She went over the edge. He heard no thump,

foot edging near the side of the mattress. and her hands grew cold in his. "Barbara!" He hurled

It slipped over. himself toward her side of the bed and looked over the

A long, thin hand, greyer than the moonlit mattress. She was disappearing into a kind of hole that
room, snaked up from beneath the bed. The foot moved swirled at the edges. His hands, as if paralyzed, loosed
a bit, and the ankle drooped over the bed edge. The their grip, and she was sucked away. The hole pulled
hand darted upward and fastened its cold grip about inward after her, and he found himself staring at the
Barbara's leg. pattern of the carpet.

She shrieked, struggling upward and clawing at He huddled on the bed, shaking. The top sheet,

Jim for stability. folded neatly at the foot of the bed, gleamed accusingly

"What? What's'a matter?" he mumbled groggily at him in the light of the waning moon, fg

- Twilight Zone 71

Illustration by Frances Jetter

A Fragment of Fact by Chris Massie is reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd., London,

R E Q U I R E 'D RE A D I N G

A Fragment of Fact

by Chris Massie

A CURIOUS ENCOUNTER,

ONE NIGHT IN THE GOUNTRY,

WITH A MOST PECULIAR MAN ...

OR SOMETHING RATHER LIKE ONE.

my progression on foot. On either side of me stretched
miles of dangerous bdgland and, though closed in by
the mist, I was fully aware of the treacherous, naked
countryside through which I was passing.

Now I was on foot traveling slowly; the sticky,
warm mist seemed to impede my path by definite resis-
tance. I was tired, thirsty, sleepy, and uncertain of my
whereabouts. It was a source of considerable irritation
to me that I was almost in touch with the most popu-
lous city in the world where every comfort might be
obtained at any hour, and yet, for the predicament I
was in, I might have been lost in the Sahara.

I plodded on, feeling very stupid, regretting the
foolhardy presumption which had turned night into
day, and overtaxed my endurance:. I reflected irritably
on the folly of taking bypaths in a fantastically situated
country like England. For the first time I deplored my
solitude. I had made similar tours with one or more
companions, but had found that, however amiable
company might be, two ideas were not better than one
on the road. Arguing at crossroads had a mean and
spoiling effect on a cycling holiday. But the situation
was getting on my nerves. I am one of those peculiar
people who are not comfortable in wide, flat, open
spaces; and though at this hour I could not see the
dreary prospect, being closed in by the mist, I could
feel it in every nerve of my body.

"I don't suppose there's a fiouse round here for
miles," I was thinking, when to my great relief I could
see through the mist a bright patch to the right of the
road which indicated, high up, the window of a lighted
room.

I pushed on anxiously in that direction, and was
soon aware that the light came from a house standing
some distance back off the bypath which was ap-
proached by a wooden gate which I opened and
against which I rested my bicycle.

S tarting from my home in Whitby, with the
fanatical enthusiasm mf youth I had traced out
a cycling itinerary which would keep me in
touch with the sea round the walls of England until I
reached Blackpool, and from there I proposed to cut
through the hills back home to Yorkshire.

Embarking on this ambitious program, I found
myself one evening, between the hours of ten and
eleven, cycling through the flat country of the sea
reaches at the mouth of the Thames. While it was yet
light, I had had fully communicated to me the melan-
choly desolation of that bog-held situation, heightened
by the weird cries of some marsh bird I did not
recognize.

The day had become sticky with heat: a sullen,
breathless atmosphere which made cycling a conscious
effort. Sweat oozed from my hair down my forehead,
and past my ears, to trickle down the open neck of my
cricket shirt. The journey was uncomfortable and unin-
teresting and, having taken a long bypath route, there
was nothing much on the way to engage my attention.

When night fell, I had hoped for cooler condi-
tions, being so near the sea and the river; but as is not
unusual following such days, the night air became
closer and more menacing. The air was so dense it
seemed I was cutting through a solid surface; and in-
deed the conditions were something like this, for a low,
clinging mist had come up from the marshland, and I
could not see more than a few yards away by the light
of my lamp.

I might have made the journey without consid-
erable discomfort had I not become intolerably thirsty;
but it was too late for an inn to be open, had I en-
countered one, which did not seem likely on this inhos-
pitable bypath.

Growing weary of pedaling and feeling the need
of sleep as well as drink, I got off my bike and made

72 Twilight Zone

•t’.trtd-

Twilight Zone 73

Illustration by Jose Reyes

A Fragment of Fact

was hedged on either side by some

tall evergreens. It was perhaps fifty

yards to the main door, and such is ^

the peculiarity of the abominable

torture set up by thirst, that now I

was within sight of quenching it,

my sufferings from that cause were

inconceivably intensified. What if I should fail to get a

drink after all? On that short journey I dwelt on pints,

quarts, gallons of ice-cold water from a deep well, and

in imagination I was quaffing greedily.

As I drew near, I saw the head and shoulders of
a man, enormously magnified, pass across the window
blind. The shadow had a downward projection, as if
he had made a sudden sweeping movement to the
floor. I rang a queer, old-fashioned bell which had to
be pulled out and let go. A swift peal clattered through
the house, which subsided with the lessening vibration
to one or two isolated sounds before it ceased.

I stood there, self-conscious, foolish; remember-
ing having made a similar request for water when a
child, and how graciously I* had been received by a
good woman, and accommodated with two juicy ap-
ples to follow my refreshing swill. But I was a young
man now and the hour was late.

There was no stir in response to my ringing. Im-
patient and desperate with my need, I rang again, and
listened once more for those last, halting reverbera-
tions. This time I had succeeded. A foot was on the
stair. A moment later the door opened, and a voice
out of the darkness, for there was no light in the hall,
asked, "What do you want?"

"I have been held up in the mist," I replied. "I am
very thirsty and would be glad of a drink of water."

The man stood for a moment as if in deep
thought. It was then I noticed his enormous propor-
tions, not only in height, but girth and shoulder span.
He was well over six feet tall even in the attitude in
which he stood, with head bowed and shoulders
humped. His long arms hung in a dragging, helpless
fashion at his sides, like an ape's.

"Come in," he said. "Come into the light."

I followed him, and he touched a door and said,
"Go and wait for me in there. I will be back again
soon with what you want."

The room I walked into was only feebly lit, giv-
ing a twilight effect. It was a large room, but very
barely furnished. Though it was obviously a dining or
sitting room, a deal table took the center of the room,
and there were three Windsor chairs in various posi-
tions. There were no pictures, and nothing of comfort
and pleasure in the apartment. I thought by this
evidence that the house was unoccupied and that the
man I had seen was the caretaker.

He returned in a few moments holding a heavy
bowl in both hands, and as I was still standing in the
middle of the room, he brought it straight forward and

74 Twilight Zone

H placed it in my hands, so that now
I was holding it in precisely the
manner he had done a moment be-
fore. It seemed enormous for a

which oppressed me. I looked down
into the water, and saw round the
edges of the bottom a dark stain
that might have been a sediment of mud.

At that moment I looked up at him in vexation,
and in the dim light I saw his face. The huge size of
the man suggested the lineaments of a gorilla, and I ex-
pected to be revolted by his appearance; but he was
not like that at all. He wore a beard which to the
worst of faces adds a venerable sort of dignity. His
brows were heavy and overhanging, so that his eyes
were invisible in these cavernous projections. His nose
was long, with a melancholy downward depression,
and his mouth hidden beneath a drooping moustache.

"This must have been a mistake," I said, in-
dicating the water.

At once he reached out with his immense hands
and took the bowl away from me. Without a word of
explanation he left the room, and I could hear him
descending stairs.

I was alarmed, and inclined to make my escape
from the house in his absence, for I had noticed, as the
bowl swung round in his hands, the word DOG on its
glazed earthenware surface.

In the state of thirst which tortured me, I was
appalled that this unmannered giant should be so lack-
ing in all human consideration as to offer me a dog's
trough from which to drink. And not a clean one. But
he had returned before I could come to a decision, and
this time he was bearing a jug and a half-pint tumbler.

He set them on the table in front of me, and in-
vited me to sit down. When 1 had done so, he sat
down oposite me on the other side of the table. He
looked across at me in the dim ligftt and made this ex-
traordinary statement: "Between your first ringing at
the bell and your second my wife died. I was attending
to her upstairs. That will explain my delay in coming
down to you." The words were uttered simply, as a matter
of course, in a deep but gentle Voice with unexpected
culture in its phrasing.

For a moment I had nothing to reply. Between
the first ringing and the second I fiad been thinking of
that good woman who, when I was a child, had supple-
mented a cooling drink with two juicy apples; and pre-
cisely at that moment a woman had died. This, for some
unknown reason, seemed to invest the information with
a special horror. I felt myself a most insolent intruder.

"I humbly beg your pardon," I said, getting up.
"That is most terrible news. I ought not to have
blundered into the house in this fashion. I will be going
now, and thank you for your hospitality."

He stood up when 1 did, and with a quick move-
ment preceded me to the door, lifting his hand in a man-

ner which suggested I should be
seated again.

"Don't go," he said. "I am
glad of your company. There is no
one else in the house. And I'm not
used to this kind of thing. Perhaps
it is a trifle unusual in a man of my
age, but this is the first time I have
seen death happen to ... to a human being. ... It so
happens that her dog died only this morning."

"And your wife has died almost immediately
after the dog?" I asked for no particular reason.

"Yes," he replied. "My wife was very fond of it;
indeed, she idolized it."

"Was your wife's death sudden? I mean, were
you expecting it?" I asked.

"Yes, I was expecting it. Both my wife and the
dog were very ill." He hesitated a moment, then con-
tinued, "When I say I expected it, I was not expecting
it at that moment although she was so ill. I had been
intent on her condition, trying to make her position in
bed more comfortable, when I heard your first ring.
My mind wandered at the psychological moment. It's
often so. At the psychological moment we are not
there; our minds are floating about in time. That is
life's illusion; so much of it is lost in ranging back over
the past or trying to explore the future. Then we look
at death, and it is all over."

His remarks were too metaphysical and self-
conscious for me to answer. I merely nodded and sat
down again. It was ridiculous to stand in the middle of
the room and listen to such conversation. He also
returned to his chair.

"Between your first ring and your second, she
died,"' he went on. "I had been nursing both of them. I
mean I was attending the sick dog up to the moment
when it died."

"What sort of dog was it?" I asked.

"A sheepdog," he replied. "One of those grey-
black, shaggy fellows with the peculiar white-ringed
eyes that seem blind, but are far from being so."

"Oh yes," I replied casually, but I was suddenly
oppressed by a breathtaking sensation of unreality.

He sat before me in idle helplessness, observing
me occasionally, and then turning a glance towards the
door.

"When the dog died, it was impossible to de-
ceive her about it," he went on. "At all times of the
day she asked where it was, and implored me to bring
it to her. It's lying there now, at the foot of the bed."

"Do you mean that your wife is dead, and lying
at her feet is a dead dog?" I asked. He had just said
that, but the picture it brought to my mind was hor-
rifying in the extreme.

"She made me place it there," he said. "Her wish
was that they should be placed in the same coffin."

"But no undertaker on earth — " 1 began.

"I know," he replied. "I know. But it was her

last wish, and 1 cannot bring myself
to bury the dog. 1 cannot sum up
sufficient courage to take it away
from her feet."

"Don't you think," I asked,
for the situation was worrying me,
"don't you think you ought to be
upstairs with her instead of here, if
only to make sure she's dead? . . . And really I must
go; I have an appointment."

Another thing had occurred to me.

"You ought to go for a doctor," I told him.
"Shall I call on the first doctor I come across on my
way? What's the name of this house?".

He made no reply at once, then he said, "I must
think the matter over carefully. You have no idea what
it is like to live in this lonely situation. It was no more
than a bond to keep them together until they died.
Why should I go upstairs again? I have done my part.
I shall be going to the village tomorrow as I have
always gone, to get the meat and vegetables, and I
may call on a doctor then."

"May!" I almost screamed. "You simply must!"

"Must, then," he concurred.

"I'm sorry," I said. The words seemed particu-
larly futile, utterly absurd.

He did not reply. He was resting his head on his
hands, with his elbows on the table.

"I must be going now," I said. "Thank you for
the drink." ^

Again he did not reply or even look up. I passed
out of the room into the dark passage, and very quietly
opened the front door and closed it after me. I dashed
down through the dark evergreens, and jumped on my
bicycle. As I was getting up speed, I heard the pad of
feet and a snarling behind me. The next moment the
heavy bulk of a big animal caught me broadside on
and nearly unseated me. As the handles swung, my
lamp was brought round to the creature's face, and I
saw a pair of savage eyes. It was a sheepdog.

He came at me again, and lifting my foot from
the pedal, I jabbed at his nose with my heel; but it was
a push rather than a kick, and he was not hurt. He
bared his teeth and leapt at my handlebars, and the
lamp, coming off its fittings, dropped in the road and
went out; but he had fallen without getting a grip of
me. Before he had completely recovered, I rode on,
and for a mile I heard him pattering behind.

"That must have been another sheepdog," I
reflected. An involuntary shudder shook me so that I
swerved on my bicycle; but this was not on account of
my affray with the dog, but because that strange man
with unkempt hair ^nd beard looked so much like a
sheepdog himself.

I did not tell my story to anyone until I reached
home. It has remained with me ever since, and from
time to time I turn it over in my mind in an effort to
clarify and rationalize it; but it remains insoluble.®

, Twilight Zone 75

'‘Do you mean that
your wife
is dead,
and

lying at her feet
is a dead dog?"

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76 Twilight Zone

MONEY THEY SAY MAKES THE MAN.
WHAT THEN, DID THE STOCK SHARES MAKE?

Starter home. Cute 2 bedroom cottage
on well-treed street. Close to stores,
transit. Good financing. Vendor has
bought. $149,000.

B aker snorted in disgust and threw the real
estate section across the length of the living
room. It was no great distance.

Starter home, $149,000! The world was going

nuts.

Baker and his wife had a combined income of
over $45,000 per year. They had over $10,000 in
savings, and the way things were going, they were
never, ever going to own a home.

When Baker had married Janice, six months
before, she had moved into his cramped one-bedroom
apartment from her own studio apartment as a
temporary measure. A temporary measure that was
beginning to look depressingly permanent. There was
simply no way they could swing buying a house, not

at those prices and at those mortgage rates.

Thirty years old, Baker brooded obsessively.
And I'm never going to own a home.

His reverie was interrupted by the telephone.

“Dickie my boy," said the voice at the other
end of the wire. "How are you doing?"

Baker was in no real mood to talk to his old
friend and former squash partner. Bob Lomax. The
man was so depressingly, so relentlessly cheerful. As
indeed he had every right to be. Lomax, unlike Baker,
had bought a house years ago, before the market
started to go bananas, then traded up and up, ever
upwards, doubling and trebling his initial stake.

Moreover, as a stockbroker for McGraw-
Peterson, one of tlfe largest firms in the city, Lomax
had parlayed a series of stock tips into an ever
burgeoning portfolio.

Money played favorites. That was what Baker
had long ago concluded. Some people, like Lomax,

Twilight Zone 77

TAKEOVER BID

seemed to have a magnetic attraction for the stuff.
Others, like himself, never came within miles of
serious money.

Oh, Lomax had passed on plenty of tips to him
in the past. But he had been too timid, not to say
underfinanced, to take advantage of them. You
needed money, that was the problem. And whatever
money Baker managed to hold onto was earmarked
for the deposit on that ever receding house.

"Awful," he told Lomax, "since you ask."

"Well, brighten up, Dickie. I bear glad tidings.
I'm going to let you in on one of the sweetest deals
I've seen in years. A word to the wise, Dickie boy.
Advanced Hurgorvia."

"Advanced Hurgorvia?" Baker echoed. "What's

that?"

"It's where the smart money is going, my boy."

"It's a company? I never even heard of it."

"Naturally not. That's the whole point. It's a
brand-new junior. Just incorporated. In fact, it's still
trading over the counter. Unlisted. A chance to get in
ahead of the crowds."

"Unlisted?" ,

"Not for long, though. They're negotiating in
New York and Chicago right now. But that's what
makes it an absolute steal. Ninety cents bid, a dollar
asked right now. Started in at fifty cents yesterday
morning. We can see it at nine, ten bucks by the fall."

It was now mid-July. Baker felt a mixture of
hope and greed begin to stir in his stomach.

"Ten bucks," he echoed. "What kind of
company is it?"

"Oh, natural resources. Mining, like that. Zinc,

I think. Or was it potassium? I've got the handout
here somewhere." Sound of shuffling papers. "Or was
it oil services? Anyway, can't seem to lay my hand on
it right now. Anyway, who cares? The point is, it's
going up. Up, up, up."

"Advanced Hurgorvia?" mused Baker. "What
kind of a name is that?"

"Who knows?" Lomax said, with a tinge of
irritation. "Who cares? Let's not get ourselves bogged
down in irrelevant details. The point is, this one was
made for you. This is your chance to get in on the
ground floor. You were telling me the other day that
you wanted to buy a house. Good old Hurgorvia is
going to buy it for you. Can I put you down for, say,
ten thousand? I'm in for twenty-five thousand
myself."

"Ten thousand? I don't have that kind of money."

"And there's no seller's commission on unlisted
stocks," Lomax continued relentlessly. "Of course, it'll
be listed by the time you sell, which is where I'll get
my cut. But basically I'm just trying to help you out."

"Bob, I can't do it. All I have is ten thousand
dollars, and that's for the house. Janice would kill me
if I used it for something like this."

"Ah, how is the little woman?" Lomax asked.

78 Twilight Zone

"Well, I can see the problem. But I certainly wouldn't
let Marsha influence my investment decisions. The
fact is that women, bless their hearts, simply don't
understand this investment stuff as well as you or 1. If
you want to get ahead in this world you've got to be
prepared to take a few risks. Not that there's any real
risk here. It's a sure thing. Of course, officially I can't
promise you that it's going to go up. But unofficially I
can tell you that you'd be crazy to pass this up."

The hell with it. Baker thought suddenly. What
good is $10,000 anyway? Time to do what the smart
boys do.

He should, of course, have waited to consult
Janice. But Janice was at the dentist, and in any case
he knew very well what she would say.

"All right," he said. "Let's do it. Put me down
for ten thousand."

The argument was, as he had expected, fero-
cious. It lasted on and off for several days. But then,
as the shares began to move up, Janice was forced to
hold her peace.

He scrutinized the business pages of the
morning paper.

"It's up again," he told her. "Closed at one
point forty to one point fifty."

"Sell it," Janice said. ""Take the money and run."

"Are you kidding? After it went up fifty cents
in a week? This is going to make us rich. Or at least,
less poor. This is our house we're talking about."

It was time to get to work. He got up from the
breakfast table and kissed Janice goodbye.

She grimaced and rubbed her cheek. "Are you
going to work without shaving?"

"I did shave," he said, surprised. "I'm sure I did."

He stroked his cheek.

"A bit of a stubble," he admitted. "Must have
been a blunt blade. I'll do it again."

T he following week Baker received a letter
from the corporate offices of Advanced
Hurgorvia. The address was a post office
box in Seattle, Washington.

Dear New Shareholder (it read).

We are delighted to welcome you to the
Hurgorvian Family. We treasure all of our
cousins, no matter how large or small their
investment with us. We are thrilled that you
have demonstrated such confidence in us at such
an early stage in our development plans. Rest
assured that your confidence will be amply
rewarded.

We have big and exciting plans for the year
ahead, and you will be learning of these plans
at the appropriate time. Once again, your
participation is greatly appreciated.

Yours sincerely,

Kori Yakovaria
Chairmarl of the Board

"We treasure all of our cousins,'" Janice
repeated, "It's a little flak}/, isn't it?"

"I don't think so," Baker said. "I think it's nice.
Makes you feel welcome. I mean, it's the personal
touch. You wouldn't get a letter like that from
AT&T."

"AT&T pays a regular dividend," Janice said
pointedly. They don't need the personal touch. And
what sort of name is Kori Yakovaria?"

"Well, you know what they say about immi-
grants," Baker said. "All that entrepreneurial drive.
Won't stop until they conquer all before them. He
sounds like a take-charge sort of guy to me."

"Flaky," Janice said again.

id I tell you or did I tell you?" asked Lomax
from the other end of the telephone.

Baker put down the report he had been
working on.

"It hit three dollars?"

"Better."

"Three fifty?"

"Three sixty. We listed it this morning in New
York. Took off like a rocket."

"Did they strike zinc, or something?"

"Silver, isn't it? Whatever. There's certainly
been some promising discovery. The point is, we're
winners."

Baker stroked his cheek absently. Time to
shave again. That would be the third time today. For
the past week he had been bringing his razor with him
to work. His doctor was just as baffled about it as he
was, but said it was nothing to worry about. Just
some sort of freak thing. Either it would stop, or he
would have to get used to it.

He was seriously thinking about growing a

beard.

"I don't know. Bob," he said. "I was thinking
of getting out while I'm ahead. Janice — "

"Ridiculous," Lomax said. "I see no ceiling on
this one. Why, we could top twenty dollars."

"Twenty dollars?"

For that kind of money he could buy a house
outright, and still have some spare change.

"Well, maybe I'll hang in there for a while," he
said. "Just for a few more weeks."

" Sell it," Janice told him. "Don't get greedy. Sell it."

"It hit four sixty today," he told her, "then
slipped back to four ten. But it was four thirty at the
close. The trend is still up."

"Sell it," she said. "We already have enough
for a deposit."

"You're thinking too small," he told her. "You
just don't understand these things the way I do. I've
been right so far, haven't 1?"

She had to admit that he was right.

"Let's go to bed," he said.

"Ouch," she said a few minutes later.

Time to shave again.

That would be the third
time today. His doctor
was just as baffled about it
as he was, but said it was
nothing to worry about.

"I just shaved," he said.

"It's your knee." she said. "It's all rough and

scaly."

He felt his knee. Then he turned the light on
again to examine it.

"You're right," he said. "They both are. In fact
my legs are, too."

From ankle to crotch his legs were rough and
dried up and scaly.

"Must be some sort of rash," he said. "I didn't
notice anything this morning. Maybe it was
something I ate."

There was a further communication from
Advanced Hurgorvia in his morning mail.

Dear Shareholder,

Great things are happening, as you are no
doubt aware. All of us in Hurgorvia are
absolutely thrilled and peraverated at the speed
at which the business community has taken us
to heart. And our advance has only just begun!

Watch for exciting fiew developments.

Hurgorvia Forever!

Your brother,

Koria Yakovaria

"Now that is flaky," Janice said.

"I don't know," Baker said. "It sort of makes
you feel good, to be part of something growing. Can't
you just feel that entrepreneurial spirit? It's like
George Gilder says . . ."

"And what on earth," Janice asked, "does he
mean when he says that he's 'thrilled and
peraverated'?"

"I don't know," Baker said. "I expect that it's
just a misprint. Maybe he means pleased."

"That's a funny sort of misprint," Janice said.

J^W%ell me," said the skin specialist, "how long
■ have you had these marks on your back?"
A "My back?" he echoed. "I'm here about
the rash on my legs."

"Your back is covered with large purplish
marks. Does this hurt?"

He pressed -down, at first lightly, then
increased the pressure.

"No," Baker said. "What is it, doctor?"

"Beats the hell out of me," the skin specialist
said cheerfully. "Never saw anything like it."

"Is it cancer?"

..f

Twilight Zone 79

: 1 '

TAKEOVER BID

"If it is, they'll have to name it after me. Or
you, of course. Because I never saw anything like it.
But I really don't think you have to worry on that
score. We better run some tests to see what it is."
"And what about my legs?"

Baker's legs looked awful. The top skin had
now flaked away, leaving a surface of hard, greenish
scales.

"That's another new one on me. I'm afraid. But
it's got to be some sort of allergic reaction. I'd like
Feldman, down at the General, to take a look at this.
He's the best allergist in town. Could be a paper in
this for both of us. Of course, it might just be nerves.
The mind can play funny tricks on the body, you
know. Are you under a lot of stress at work?"

"Not really."

"Having financial problems?"

"Not in the least," he said. "No problems on
that score."

B aker glimmed. He glimmed rekfully at first,
but then with increasing conviction. He
glimmed toward hi» vevorukk, across the
dry and- rocky plain, under the purplish sun . . .

How rruminid it was to glim!

The phone rang, interrupting this idyll.
"Kerveryan," he said in irritation, reaching an
arm out of bed toward the phone. His arm, like his
chest and back, was now covered with the purplish
marks. Lately he had taken to wearing pyjamas to
bed to spare Janice, and himself, the sight of him. But
the marks also covered the back of his hand.

"What did you say?" Janice asked, stirring
beside him in the bed.

"I don't know," he said. "I don't know what I

said."

"You said something like 'kerveryan,'" she

said.

He shook .Iris' head in bafflement.

"Hello," he said into the phone.

"Dickie, it's Bob. And we're listed in London
and Tokyo. Just came over the wire. Big international
push. People can't get enough of the stuff. All high
tech stocks are pretty hot, but good old Advanced
Hurgorvia is the hottest. Broke six bucks in New
York."

"High tech? I thought they were into
resources."

"Oh, diversification, I suppose. Anyway, the
point is I think you owe me lunch. At the best
restaurant in town."

Baker realized guiltily that he had not seen
Lomax in months. Since he had given up squash, their
only contact had been over the phone.

"You're right," he said. "How about Tuesday?"
"Ah, that's not good for me. Doctor's
appointment. How's Wednesday?"

"Sorry," Baker said, "I've got a doctor's

appointment, too."

"Well, just as long as you're healthy. How
about Friday?"

"Friday is fine."

I t was a two-mile walk from his office to the res-
taurant Lomax had selected, but Baker covered
the distance in an effortless fifteen-minute
jog without even raising a sweat.

Lately he had felt an almost boundless energy.
His legs felt as strong as iron. His lungs seemed to
have limitless capacity. His heart was steady as a
rock. But for his various skin ailments, he was in
better health than he had ever been before.

It was just one more detail to puzzle the
doctors. So far all the allergy tests had proved
negative. The purplish marks on his torso and armed
had begun to turn mauve.

He saw Bob Lomax heading toward the
restaurant from the opposite direction from a distance
of twelve blocks. Lately, again, his eyesight had
become astonishingly good, and he had abandoned
the glasses he wore for driving. His optician had
explained that sometimes this happened as you got
older.

He noted that Lomax, like himself, was
wearing a beard these days. He was also, on a warm
August day, wearing leather gloves.

"Why the gloves?" Baker asked as they waited
to be shown to their table.

"It's a bit embarrassing, actually," Lomax said.
"Look."

He pulled off the gloves. Large mauve marks
covered the backs of his hands.

"Do you have those all over your body?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. Except for my
legs ..."

The waitress came to show them to their table.
Lomax had indeed picked one of the best
restaurants in town. It was packed with movers and
shakers from the city's financial district.

"Hey," Baker said, "isn't that Michael Dawson?
Except I didn't know he had a beard."

Dawson, chief executive of one of the city's
biggest banks, was sitting at a window table. His
luncheon companion was also heavily bearded.

"We're trend-setters, Dickie boy. Although to
tell you the truth, I only grew it because — "

"Because you had to shave six times a day,"
Baker completed.

"How did you know that? "

Baker held out his hands, palms downwards, in
answer.

"Strange," Lomax said. "And something
stranger. Did you notice that Karns is wearing
gloves?"

"Must be something going around," Baker said.
He picked up the menu.

80 Twilight Zone

In the mail the next day, Baker received his final
written communication from Advanced Hurgorvia.

Dear Brother in Hurgorvia,

As you look at the world through new eyes,
you see it alive with promise, bursting with
things yet to become. Ah, the dawning 'of the
age of Hurgorvia! Ah, the reglipping of our
heritage! As you have joined us, so we will join
you, to build a newer and greater Hurgorvia.

With appreciation for your magnificent sup-
port. Looking forward to glimming with you,
Hurgorvia Supreme!

Kori Yakovaria

"Very flaky," Janice said. "In fact, complete
gobbledegook. In fact, I would say that these people
are out to lunch. You had better sell those shares right
now before it's too late. If it isn't too late already."
Baker did not respond.

‘“The reglipping of our heritage,'" she
repeated. '“Looking forward to glimming with you.'
What does it mean?"

"I don't know," Baker said, scratching absently
at his beard. "And yet in some way I can't really
explain, it seems to make a kind of sense."

T he report was not going well. Baker was
bored with the whole exercise. He longed to
be outside in the open air. In fact he longed
to be out of the city, to enjoy the still lush country-
side of this lush little planet, to reglip and to corrorate
and of course to glim . . .

He shook his head as if to clear it. Lately he
had been having such strange thoughts, such strange
dreams. He had been thinking of seeing a psychiatrist,
about it. And yet another part of his mind told him
that he had nothing to worry about.

The phone rang.

"Two-for-one stock split," Lomax said without
preamble. "You now own twenty-thousand shares.
Last trade at four ten. Hurgorvia forever! Isn't that
just heristific?"

"What did you say?"

"I said, 'Isn't that just . . . heristitic.'" There
was a pause. "You'll have to excuse me. Can't think
what I meant. Anyway, there's something else. A hot
and heavy rumor that Advanced Hurgorvia are
preparing — "

"Let me guess," Baker said. "A takeover bid,

right?"

"Right," Lomax said. "How did you know?"
"Who for?" Baker asked. "AT&T? IBM?"

"Not quite," Lomax said. "But give them time.
This is a medium-size ^mining group. How did you
know?"

■ "How do I know about heristitic? Or
vevorukks? Or glimming?"

"Glimming," Lomax repeated. "Wasn't there

something in that rather strange letter ..."

“Looking forward to glimming with you,"
Baker said. "And we will be. Pretty soon now. It all
fits together now."

"I don't understand."

"But I do," Baker said. "I understand very
well. In fact, I think I've understood it for a long time
without wanting to admit it. We've been had. Bob.
We've been invaded. Through the backdoor. Invaded
by Hurgorvia, whatever that is. Some kind of dried-
up, rocky, dusty faraway planet."

"Invaded? What do you mean, invaded?"

"Oh," Baker said, "not like in the movies. No
space ships. No bombs. No threats. But invaded all
the same. There are better ways to invade a country.
Or a world. Economic control, that's how you do it.
Nice and clean. You can even use other people's
money to do it. The Hurgorvians are going to buy us
up. Bob. Lock, stock, and barrel. And then they're
going to move in. In fact, they're already here. We're
here. Bob. We're Hurgorvians now. We're the
advance guard."

"Wait a minute," Lomax said. "I didn't sign up
to become a Hurgorvian. All I did was buy a few
shares. They have no riglit to do this to 'us. It's
monstrous. It's outrageous. It's . . . illegal."

By whose laws. Bob? Maybe in Hurgorvia
you become what you own. Who knows? In fact, isn't
there something in the Book of Yoruka — "

"The what?"

"The Book of Yoruka," Baker repeated. "I
wonder what the hell that is? Well, we'll know soon
enough. Anyway, sue them if you like. See where it
gets you. The point is, they did it. And we bought it.
We signed up. We're brothers in Hurgorvia now. Or
we soon will be."

"I'm going to complain to the Securities
Commission," Lomax said.

"I don't think you will," Baker said. "After all,
we've been deliberately ignoring the obvious for
weeks. Obviously they didn't want us to know until
now. And if they're letting us know now, then it's
probably too late to do anything about it."

"I'm going to put in a sell order."

"Too late, I think," Baker said. "Much too late.
You might as well just enjoy your dividends. Because
we're too far gone^ In fact, I think I have an
irresistible urge to glim right now. Right here and
now in my office. It's all I can do to fight it down."

"But what is glimming?"

"I don't know," Baker said. "But I think I'm
about to find out." 10

- %

Twilight Zone 81

l/STE^

6y Joe /^. len£c/e/e

INVISIBILITY— AS THE PSYCHIATRIST DISCOVERED—
WAS JUST A STATE OF MIND.

he psychiatrist wore blue, the color of Merguson's
mood.

"Mr. . . . uh?" the psychiatrist asked.
"Merguson. Floyd Merguson."

"Sure, Mr. ..."

"Merguson."

"Right. Come into the office."

It was a sleek office full of sleek black chairs the
texture of a lizard's underbelly. The walls were
decorated with paintings of explosive color; a metal-
drip sculpture resided on the large walnut desk. And
there was the couch, of cour^, just like in the movies.
It was a chocolate-brown with throw-pillows at each
end. It looked as if you could drift down into it and
disappear in its softness.

They sat in chairs, however. The psychiatrist on
his side of the desk, Merguson on the client's side.

The psychiatrist was a youngish man with a fine
touch of premature white at the temples. He looked
every inch the intelligent professional.

"Now," the psychiatrist said, "what exactly is
your problem?"

Merguson fiddled his fingers, licked his lips, and
looked away.

"Come on, now. You came here for help, so
let's get started."

"Well," Merguson said cautiously. "No one
takes me seriously."

"Tell me about it."

"No one listens ta me. I can't take it anymore.
Not another moment. I feel like I'm going to explode if
I don't get help. Sometimes I just want to yell out.
Listen to me!"

Merguson leaned forward and said confiden-
tially, "Actually, I think it's a disease. Yeah, I know
how that sounds, but I believe it is, and I believe
I'm approaching the terminal stage of the illness.

"I got this theory that there are people others
don't notice, that they're almost invisible. There's just
something genetically wrong with them that causes
them to go unnoticed. Like a little clock that ticks in-
side them, and the closer it gets to the hour hand the
more unnoticed these people become.

"I've always had the problem of being shy and in-
troverted — and that's the first sign of the disease. You
either shake it early or you don't. If you don't, it just
grows like cancer and consumes you. With me the prob-
lem gets worse every year, and lately by the moment.

82 Twilight Zone

"My wife, she used to tell me it's all in my
head, but lately she doesn't bother. But let me start at
the first, when I finally decided I was ill, that the ill-
ness was getting worse and that it wasn't just in my
head, not some sort of complex.

"Just last week I went to the butcher, the butcher
I been going to for ten years. We were never chummy,
no one has ever been chummy to me but my wife, and
she married me for my money. 1 was at least visible
then; I mean you had to go to at least some effort to
ignore me, but God, it's gotten worse . . .

"I'm off the track. I went to the butcher, asked
him for some choice cuts of meat. Another man comes
in while I'm talking to him and asks for a pound of
hamburger. Talks right over me, mind you. What hap-
pens? You guessed it. The butcher starts shooting the
breeze with the guy, wraps up a pound of hamburger
and hands it over to him!

"I ask him about my order and he says. Oh, I
forgot.'"

Merguson lit a cigarette and held it between un-
steady fingers after a long deep puff. "I tell you, he
waited on three other people before he finally got to
me, and then he got my order wrong, and I must have
told him three times, at least.

"It's more than I can stand. Doc. Day after day
people not noticing me, and it's getting worse all the
time. Yesterday I went to a movie and I asked for a
ticket and it happened. I mean I went out completely,
went transparent, invisible. I mean completely. This
was the first time. The guy just sits there behind the
glass, like he's looking right through me. I asked him
for a ticket again. Nothing.

"I was angry. I'll tell you. I just walked right on
toward the door. Things had been getting me down
bad enough without not being able to take off and go
to a movie and relax. I thought I'd show him. Just
walk right in. Then they'd sell me a ticket.

"No one tried to stop me. No one seemed to
know I was there. I didn't bother with the concession
stand. No one would have waited on me anyway.

"Well, that was the first time of the complete
fadeouts. And I remember when I was leaving the
movie, I got this funny idea. I went into the bathroom
and looked in the mirror. I swear to you. Doc, on my
mother's grave, there wasn't an image in the mirror. I
gripped the sink to keep upright, and when I looked up
again I was fading in, slowly. Well, I didn't stick

around to see
my face come into
view. I left there and
went straight home.

"That afternoon was the corker.

Twilight Zone 83

My wife, Connie, I know she's
been seeing another man. Why not?

She can t see me. And when she can I don t have the
presence of a one-watt bulb. I came home from the
movie and she's all dressed up and talking on the
phone.

"I say, 'Who you talking to?"'

Merguson crushed his cigarette out in the ash-
tray on the psychiatrist's desk. "Doesn't say doodly
squat. Doc. Not a word. I'm mad as hell. I go upstairs
and listen on the extension. It's a man, and they're
planning a date.

"I broke in over the line and started yelling at
them. Guess what? The guy says, 'Do you hear a buzz-
ing or something or other?' 'No,' she says. And they go
right on with their plans.

"I was in a honnicidal rage. I went downstairs
and snatched the phone out of her hand and threw it
across the room. I wn.'cked furniture and busted up
some lamps and expensive pottery. Just made a general
wreck out of the place.

"She screamed then. Doc. I tell you she screamed
good. But then she says the thing that makes me come
here. 'Oh God,' she says. 'Ghost! Ghost in this house!'

"That floored me, and I knew I was invisible
again. I went upstairs and looked in the bathroom

Later when the law came and found the psy-
chiatrist strangled artd slumped across his desk, his
secretary said "Funny, I don't remember anyone com-
ing in or leaving. Couldn't have come in while I was
here. He had an appointment with a Mr. . . . uh." She
looked at the appointment book. "A Mr. Merguson.
But he never showed." (S

mirror. Sure enough.
Nothing there. So I waited until I
faded back and I called your secretary. It took me five
tries before she finally wrote my name down, gave me
an appointment. It was worse than when I tried to get
the meat from the butcher. So I hurried right over. I
had to get this out. I swear I'm not going crazy, it's a
disease, and it's getting worse and worse and worse.

"So what can I do. Doc? How can I handle this?
I know it's not in my head, and I've got to have some
advice. Please, Doc. Say something. Tell me what to
do. I've never been this desperate in my entire life. I
might fade out again and not come back."

The psychiatrist took his hand from his chin
where it had been resting. "Wha . . . ? Sorry. I must
have dozed. What was it again, Mr. . . . uh?"

Merguson dove across the desk, clawing for the
psychiatrist's throat.

Courtesy Green Tiger Ptess, La Jolla, California

by Thomas M. Disch,
Karl Edward Wagner, and R. S. Hadji

THREE UNUSUALLY ERUDITE SCHOLARS
(WITH UNUSUALLY STROrsIG OPINIONS)
LIST THEIR FAVORITE— AND LEAST
FAVORITE— READING.

Everybody loves a list, right? Wrong. The following people do not
like lists; 1) Dalton Trumbo, 2) George Sand, 3) Adrian Messenger . . .
and probably one or two more. Everyone else, though, loves a list, so
with this fact in mind— and in honor of May 13, the only Friday the 13th
in 1983— we asked our three best-read friends to put together 13-item
reading lists for us. After combing their libraries and searching their
memories, they came up with these wonderfully idiosyncratic
recommendations, which should send the more ambitious among you
' — c-;:- to your local libraries and second-hand bookshops.

transmuting the dross of the
Gothic and Schaur romantik into
brilliant fables, moving a
memorable gallery of grotesques
briskly through increasingly
fantastic situations. His tales
possess subtlety, wit,
psychological insight and
consummate literary skill, setting
the standard for his successors.

13 SUPREME MASTERS OF
WEIRD FICTION
Selected by R.S. Hadji

3. Walter De La Mare (1873-1956)
The master of the psychological
ghost story, De La Mare's stories
consist of shifting ambiguities
expressed in exquisite prose,
glimpses of what might be the
supernatural, and then again,
might only be a faulty perception,
a delusion. His genius lies in the
palpably menacing atmosphere
that rises from these subtly
calculated ambiguities, deceiving
the reader as effectively as the
characters. The ghosts may not be
real, but the unease is there, all
the same.

1. Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951)
Blackwood was a mystic, deeply
versed in occult lore and Oriental
religion, which lends to his work
the quiet conviction of a true
believer. His pantheistic beliefs
convey a distinct sense of the
supernatural as an extension,
rather than an invasion, of the
natural order. He is unrivaled in
depicting genii loci, whether good
or evil.

M.R. James (1862-1936)

James is the quintessential English
ghost story writer, dry,
understated, perhaps a trifle
mechanical, yet lurking behind the
bare bones of his diffident
shcolars and their antiquities is a
living heart of pure nightmare.

His ghosts haunt the memory long
after the dust of the past settles
comfortably b.ack into place.

4. Hanns Heinz Ewers (1871-1943)
Perhaps the first modem horror
writer. Ewers set out to explore
the physical nexus of sex and
horror. His works are decadent in
mode, yet expressionist in mood;
his obsession with blood-lust and
the ritual element in mass violence
anticipates the terrors of our time.

2. Ray Bradbury (b. 1920)

Although considered a science
fiction writer by many,

Bradbury's weird tales have had
an enormous influence on the
genre in the last four decades. He
chronicles the night-side of the
American Dream, Our Town
distorted in a fun-house mirror. A
poet in prose. Bradbury has
uniquely captured the terror and
wonder of childhood.

7. Franz Kafka (1883-1924)

Kafka was a Cjuiet revolutionary,
overthrowing the ordinary world
by distortion, so that the unreal
becomes commonplace, and
madness the norm. Rarely has so
overpowering a sense of alienation
and despair been presented with

5. E.T.A. Hoffmann (1776-1822)
Hoffmann was the first true
master of weird fiction.

84 Twilight Zone

IVE-FOOT BOOKSHELF

such economy; his work has the
terrifying lucidity of a nightmare
in daylight.

8. J. Sheridan LeFanu (1814-1873)

The greatest Victorian ghost story
writer, LeFanu rejected the
accepted notion that the spiritual
world mirrored the moral order of
our own, being convinced that
the supernatural was essentially
chaotic and malefic, the antithesis
of life. In traditional Gothic
settings, his characters are
hounded to death, innocent and
guilty alike, by implacable
revenants whose descendants long
outlived their gentler
contemporaries.

9. H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937)

A true original, Lovecraft looked
beyond the earthly ken of
supernatural terrors to envision a
universe of "cosmic horror,"
populated by a pantheon of
monstrous deities inimical to
humanity. Despite his tortuous
prose, the Cthulhu Mythos
weaves a powerful spell of
paranoia, alienation, and fear of
the limitless void.

10. Arthur Machen (1863-1947)
Drawing upon a wide knowledge
of Hermetic magic and Celtic
folklore, Machen's gruesome
symbolist fables opened a
Pandora's Box of ancient evils
lurking beneath the streets, the
soil, even the skin of Victorian
England. He was a master of
evocative settings, whether city or
country, at once intensely real yet
subtly disturbing. Behind the
facade of life, a greater, more
terrible reality always lay hidden.

11. Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

The first American genius of the
macabre, Poe used the mechanics
of Gothic fiction as a metaphor
for the abnormal psyche. Himself
of a naturally morbid
temperament, he pursued and was
pursued by demons of the mind,
yet, reaching to the limits of the
imagination, managed to embrace
both sublime beauty and
loathsome horror in his work.

Poe's influence on the genre has
been incalculable and definitive.

12. Jean Ray (1887-1964)

Ray was a Belgian journalist,
virtually unknown in the English-
speaking world, but he produced
an enormous body of work,
covering every aspect of the
supernatural genre. He rarely left
Ghent save in imagination, but in
that medium roamed a chaotic
universe of extraordinary
happenings, inhabited by ghosts,
goblins and grotesques of every
dscription. His work followed no
consistent ethos of the
supernatural, but seemed to be
guided by a sort of internal
dream logic, reminiscent of the
Surrealists.

13. Claude Seignolle (b. 1917)

A master of naturalism in the
supernatural tale, Seignolle draws
upon an intimate knowledge of
the French countryside, its
inhabitants and their folklore. In
his work, the supernatural is a
living force of nature, releasing
sexual and physical violence in its
wake. It is as much a part of the
landscape as the soil or the trees,
and is accepted as such.

13 ALL-TIME CLASSICS
OF FANTASY

Selected by Thomas M. Disch

1. Caleb Williams, or Things as
They Are

by William Godwin (1794)

A good man hounded to . . . his
grave? I won't tell. The first epic
of paranoia.

2. The Monk by Matthew Gregory
"Monk" Lewis (1796)

The first X-rated gothic
romance — and still juicy after
all these years.

3. Undine by Baron de la Motte
Fouque (1818; Gosse Translation
1896)

This fairy tale-novel from the
heyday of German romanticism
tells in a gentle, sentimental
manner of the love of the water-
sprite Undine for the young
knight Huldbrand. Wagner was
rereading this on his deathbed.

4. Melmoth The Wanderer
by Charles Maturin (1820)

The quintessential Gothic novel; a
virtual mince pie of horrors,
including a splendid tour of the
dungeons of the Inquisition.

5. Confessions of a Justified Sinner
by James Hogg (1824)

Gide waxed enthusiastic for
Hogg's portrait of the devil in
modem dress; it's also the last
word on doppelgangers. The
sinner of the title is-an awesomely
sanctimonious hypocrite.

6. The Yellow Wallpaper

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1892)
At the turn of the century
madness displaced the
supernatural as the crux of Gothic
horror, and this tale of incipient
schizophrenia is a monument of
that transition — and an important
document of modem feminism.

7. The Turn of the Screw
by Henry James (1898)

Still the sneakiest and most
sinister of ghost stories. Are Miles
and Flora being corrupted by '
Peter Quint's ghost — or is the
govemness imagining things?

8. The Beckoning Fair One
by Oliver Onions (1911)

Paul Oleron rents a floor of a
house on a London square,
unaware that he's moved into the
very St. Paul's Cathedral of
haunted houses.

9. Lady Into Fox

by David Garnett (1922)

The title tells the story, but for
the sheer word-by-word wonder
of its art, nothing can touch
Garnett's masterpiece.

10. The Werewolf of Paris
by Guy Endore (1933)

Frankenstein and Dracula were of
English and Irish origin,
respectively, but it was an
American, Guy Endore, who
wrote the definitive novel on

rlycanthropy — one that no
filmmaker has yet dared adapt.

11. Conjure Wife by Fritz Leiber (1943)
Leiber wrote this classic account

of witchcraft in academia forty

Twilight Zone 85

THE FAiNTAoY FIVE-FOOT BOOKoHELF

years ago, and the magic still
works: his and its. Happy
Anniversary!

12. The Sound of His Horn
by Sarban (pseudonym of
John W. Wall) (1952)

The Nazis won World War II,
and now they're breeding lesser
races as game to be hunted on
their estates. Several degrees more
chilling than "The Most
Dangerous Game."

13. Snow White

by Donald Barthelme (1964)
Postmodernism in collision with
Walt Disney and the Brothers
Grimm. Much fun, many games.

13 BEST SUPERNATURAL
HORROR NOVELS
Selected by Karl Edward Wagner

1. Hell! Said the Duchess
by Michael Arlen

An unexpectedly chilling tale of
demonic possession from this
charming author.

2. The Burning Court
by John Dickson Carr

Carr liked to introduce elements
of the supernatural into his
detective novels, usually with
terrifying effect. Made into a film,
but 1 haven't seen it.

3. Alraune by Hanns Heinz Ewers
The second of the Frank Braun
trilogy, this one concerning the
creation of a soulless woman
whose birth parallels the legend of
the mandrake.

4. Dark Sanctuary
by H. B. Gregory

This begins routinely enough — an
occult investigator is called in to
slay an ancestral ghost in a
gloomy castle— then takes off to
become a 1930s version of Blish's
Black Easter. Perhaps the best of
the British thrillers.

5. Falling Angel

by William Hjortsberg
This Chandleresque private eye
novel may well be the finest
American horror novel of this

century.

6. Maker of Shadows
by Jack Mann

The best of Mann's "Gees" series,
most of which are very good
indeed. Gees was a private
investigator whose cases often
involved the supernatural — in this
case, pre-Druidic magic and an
immortal sorcerer.

7. The Yellow Mistletoe

by Walter S. Masterman
A wild one. Masterman was
another of those detective writers
who at times broke away from
formula. This one reads like a
cross between Monk Lewis and
Sax Rohmer.

8. Melmoth the Wanderer

by Charles Robert Maturin
The greatest of the Gothic novels,
proving that gothic and
psychological horrors are doubly
effective when combined.

9. Burn Witch Bum by A. Merritt
Best known for his lost-race
fantasy novels, this time Merritt is
equally brilliant at modem horror,
in a tale of murderous dolls
animated by the souls of their
human counterparts. Filmed as
The Devil-Doll.

10. Fingers of Fear
by J.U. Nicolson

This one has it all: lycanthropy,
vampirism, family curse, patricide,
incest, infanticide, hauntings, the
works. Supposedly it was
marketed as straight detective
fiction. Must have freaked out the
Agatha Christie fans.

11. Doctors Wear Scarlet
by Simon Raven

Is it vampirism or is it neurotic
obsession? Ask the dead. Superb
modern vampire novel was filmed
as Incense for the Damned
(a/k/a Bloodsuckers).

12. Echo of a Curse by R.R. Ryan
Undeservedly forgotten, Ms. Ryan
was the best of the British thriller
writers— a group who wrote
popular fiction for the lending
libraries, roughly parallel to the
pulp writers in America between
the world wars. This novel of

lycanthropy and vampirism rates
with Fingers of Fear as one
of the best.

13. Medusa by E.H. Visiak

If David Lindsay had written
Treasure Island in the throes of a
peyote-induced religious experience
. . . Well, if Coleridge had given
Melville a hand on Moby Dick
after a few pipes of opium . . .

13 BEST NON-SUPERNATURAL
HORROR NOVELS
Selected by Karl Edward Wagner

1. The Deadly Percheron
by John Franklin Bardin
The opening chapter defies
description. Imagine one of those
1930s screwball comedies with the
crazy situations, but substitute
malevolence for humor.

2. Psycho by Robert Bloch
Can you ever feel safe in the
shower again? I think there may
have been a film version by
Alfred Hitchcock.

3. Here Comes a Candle
by Fredric E'rown

Brown, like Bloch, could be
extremely funny when he chose,
or extremely frightening. This
time he wasn't kidding.

4. The Screaming Mimi
by Fredric Brown

Brown again at his terrifying best,
and again with a psychotic killer.
This was filmed twice: once as
The Screaming Mirni and more
recently as The Bird with the
Crystal Plumage (a/k/a The
Phantom of Terror).

5. The Fire-Spirits by Paul Busson
A strange tale of a young man's
involvement with a bewitching
peasant child, mountain legends,
and German unification. The
English translation is said to be
heavily expurgated, but I haven't
read the German to compare.

6. The Crooked Hinge
by John Dickson Carr
Sometimes Carr actually did use
the supernatural in his detective
novels, sometimes he only seemed

86 Twilight Zone

8 .

to do so. The Crooked Hinge
does not turn out to be a ghost
story, but that won't spare
your nerves.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice
by Hanns Heinz Ewers
The first of the Frank Braun
trilogy. Braun hypnotizes a
peasant girl into believing she has
known a heavenly visitation, the
isolated village goes mad with
religious frenzy, and Braun is in
over his head.

Vampire by Hanns ffeinz Ewers
Third and most obviously political
of the Frank Braun trilogy. Braun
tours the United States before its
entry into World War I, trying to
gain support for the German
cause, during which time he
suffers from periods of weakness
and blackouts. The question of
who is the victim and who the
master was a recurrent dilemma
in Ewers's work, and one which
the Nazis finally soh'ed for him.

Fully Dressed and in His Right
Mind by Michael Fessier
Like John Franklin Bardin, Fessier
takes a screwball situation
and adroitly twists it into
something evil.

13. The Subjugated Beast
by R. R. Ryan

Ryan could be extremely sadistic
when the mood was on her, and
the mood was usually on her, and
it certainly was here. Ryan could
combine psychological cruelty
with Grand Guignol horror better
than any writer going, except
perhaps Charles Birkin, and she
had a knack for putting her
characters into situations that
would have given Hitchcock
qualms. This would have made a
great Hitchcock film, although the
British probably had laws against
such things.

13 WORST STINKERS
OF THE WEIRD
Selected by R.S. Hadji

1. The Sorrows of Satan
by Marie Corelli

The worst sort of Victorian tripe,
sentimental, vulgar and
monumentally boring. Her
contemporary critics evidently felt
much the same way.

10. The Shadow on the House
by Mark Hansom
Hansom is another of the unjustly
neglected group of British thriller
writers. Usually his novels only
appeared to have supernatural
content, and at the end we learn
it was only Uncle G«!offrey in a
Mad Monk costume behind it all.
The ending to this one is a
stunner.

11. Torture Garden

by Octave Mirbeau
Fin-de-siecle decadence at its best.
At one time one of those
"suppressed" books and now
chiefly remembered for one of
Prank Frazetta's rarer paperback ,
covers.

12. The Master of the Day of
' Judgment by Leo Perutz

Is.it real or is it hashish? But
what is reality? It's aE relative,
isn't it? This one is strange, even
for Perutz.

2. Unholy Relics, by M.P. Dare
Dreadful ghost stories, in the
M.R. James tradition, poorly
written and ripe with
embarrassing imagery Freudians
would have a field

day with.

3. Count Dracula's Canadian Affair
by Otto Fredrick

Dracula vs. the Mounties during
the North-West Rebellion of 1885.
Need I say more?

4. The Grip of Fear
by Vern Hansen

Evidently a shaky one, this being
the second most inept collection
of weird tales I've ever read. The
"author" is blissfully innocent of
such niceties as imagination, style,
or grammar.

5. Rest in Agony by Ivar Jorgenson
A pulpy-to-rotten diabolic thriller,
much worse than any of The
Exorcist's misbegotten progeny.

After twenty-five years, still a
champion stinker.

6. Dracutwig

by Mallory T. Knight
Vampire dollybird takes on sixties
"Swinging London." I burned my
copy some years back, and have
not been troubled since.

7. The Transition of Titus Crow
by Brian Lumley

"Doe not calle up Any wordes
that you cannot put downe in
readable prose, lest Vogge-Sothoth
drye yr ink in the pen, and eate
yr face." — Claus Vomitus.

8. The Vampire Tapes
by Arabella Randolphe
Howlingly bad imitation of
Interview with the Vampire.

9. Suffer the Children
by John Saul

A vile book, just shy of "kiddie
porn." The real horror is that this
was a bestseller!

10. Cellars by John Shirley

The most thoroughly disgusting
horrojf thriller in recent memory,
a declaration of war on all
standards of taste in the genre.

11. The Sucking Pit
by Guy N. Smith
The title says it all.

12. The Lair of the White Worm
by Bram Stoker

A thoroughly demented book, at
times unintentionally hilarious.

The author evidently was half-
mad when he wrote this, the
absolute proof of same.

13. The Vamipire Baroness
by Violet Van Der Elst
Now this is the most inept
collection I've ever read, a
legendary British stinker. She also
wrote poetry and songs— believe
me, you don't want to know. 18

The Fantasy Five-Foot Bookshelf
concludes in our next issue with lists
of neglected masterpieces, science
fiction horror novels, best works of
fantasy since 1970, and the scariest
short stories of all time.

Twilight Zone 87

Photos courtesy More Scott Zicree and Serlir^g Archives. Ithoco College School of Communications

SHOW

B Y

SHOW

GUIDE

TV’s Twilight Zone
Part Twenty-Four

CONTINUING MARC SCOTT ZICREE'S
SHOW-BY-SHOW GUIDE TO THE ENTIRE
TWILIGHT ZONE JElEW\S\ON SERIES,
COMPLETE WITH ROD SERLING'S OPENING
AND CLOSING NARRATIONS

“You unlock this door with the key of imagination.
Beyond it is another dimension— a dimension of
sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind.
You’re moving into a land of both shadow and
substance, of things and ideas. You’ve jitst crossed
over into the Twilight Zone. ’’

he’s in high ge
Twilight Zone.

144. WHAT'S IN THE BOX

Written by Martin M. Goldsmith

Producer: William Froug

Director; Richard L. Bare

Dir. of Photography: George T. Clemens

Music: Stock

Cast

Joe Britt: William Demarest
Phyllis Britt: Joan Blondell
TV Repairman: Sterling Holloway
Dr. Saltman: Herbert Lytton
Woman: Sandra Gould
Judge: Howard Wright
Russian Duke: John L. Sullivan
Panther Man: Ted Christy
Car Salesman: Ron Stokes
Prosecutor; Douglas Bank
Announcer: Tonv Miller

After loudmouth Britt insults a tv
repairman working on his set, the
man abruptly closes up the television
and says that it's fixed — for free. Britt
thinks nothing of this until he sees
that the set is able to pick up channel
10 — something it's never done before
—and that the screen shows Joe in
the company of his mistress! Joe is
desperate that his shrewish wife
Phyllis not see this. Things rapidly
get worse, however; the tv now
shows a scene in which Joe argues
with Phyllis and punches her through
their apartment window to her
death — a scene which only Joe seems
able to see and hear. Frantic to avoid
this tragedy, Joe admits his past
adultery and begs Phyllis to forgive
him. This only serves to infuriate her;
the two argue and Joe, enraged,
punches Phyllis through the window.
As the police lead him away the
repairman appears. "Fix your set

okay, mister?" he asks Joe. "You will
recommend my service, won't you?"

"The next time your tv set is on the
blink, when you're in the need for a
first-rate repairman, may we suggest
our own specialist? Factory- trained,
prompt, honest, twenty-four-hour
service. You won't find him in
the phone book, hut his office is
conveniently located— in the
Twilight Zone. "

"Portrait of a tv fan. Name: Joe
Britt. Occupation: cab driver.

Tonight, Mr. Britt is going to watch
‘a really big show,' something special
for the cabbie who's seen everything.
Joe Britt doesn't know it, but his flag
is down and his meter's running and

88 Twilight Zone

146. I AM THE NIGHT-COLOR ME
BLACK

Written by Rod Serling

Producer: William Froug

Director: Abner Biberman

Dir. of Photography: George T. Clemens

Music: Stock

i Cast

■ Sheriff Koch: Michael Constantine
Colbey: Paul Fix

i Jagger: Terry Becker

j Deputy Pierce: George Lindsey
Rev. Anderson: Ivan Dixon
Ella Koch: Eve McVeagh
Man jjtl: Douglas Bank
Man jf2: Ward Wood
Woman: Elizabeth Harrower

"Sheriff Charlie Koch on the morning
of an execution. As a matter of fact,
it's seven-thirty in the morning. Logic
and natural laws dictate that at this
hour there should be daylight. It is a
simple rule of physical science that
the sun should rise at a certain
moment and supercede the darkness.
But at this given rthoment, Sheriff

\ 145. THE MASKS

Written by Rod Serling

Producer: Bert Granet

Director: Ida Lupino

Dir. of Photography: George T. Clemens

Music: Stock

Cast

Jason Foster: Robert Keith
Emily Harper: Virginia Gregg
Wilfred Harper: Milton Selzer
Wilfred, Jr.: Alan Sues
Paula Harper: Brooke Hayward
Doctor: Willis Bouchey
Butler: Bill Walker

"Mr. Jason Foster, a tired ancient
who on this particular Mardi Gras
evening will leave the earth. But
before departing he has some things
to do, some services to perform,
some debts to pay — and some justice
to mete out. This is New Orleans,
Mardi Gras time. It is also the
Twilight Zone."

Knowing he is about to die, Foster
summons his heirs — with v/hom he
shares no affection — to his mansion
for a bizarre Mardi Gras ritual. A
Cajun has fashioned grotesque masks
for him that reflect the true inner
natures of his family: the whiny self-
pity of his daughter Emily; the

Charlie Koch, a deputy named Pierce,
a condemned man named Jagger and
a small, inconsequential village will
shortly find out that there are causes
and effects that have no precedent.
Such is usually the case — in the
Twilight Zone."

On the day Jagger is to be executed,
a number of people wonder why it's
still pitch-black throughout the
Midwestern town. Jagger is an
unpopular idealist whose trial — for
killing a "cross-burning, psychopathic
bully" — had a number of questionable
elements: Deputy Pierce perjured
himself on the stand; Sheriff Koch
failed to bring up facts that might
have led to acquittal; and Colbey,
editor of the town paper, printed
only articles naming Jagger guilty,
although he personally believed him
innocent. On the gallows. Rev.
Anderson asks Jagger if he enjoyed
the killing — Jagger did indeed.
Anderson pronounces him guilty to
the blood-thirsty crowd, and Jagger is
hanged. The darkness closes in, a

darkness created by hate . . . and it's
spreading to other parts of the world.

"A sickness known as hate: not a
virus, not a microbe, not a germ —
but a sickness nonetheless, highly
contagious, deadly in its effects.

Don't look for it in the Twilight
Zone — look for it in a mirror. Look
for it before the light goes out
altogether. "

avarice of his son-in-law Wilfred; the
vanity of his granddaughter Paula;
and the dull cruelty of his grandson
Wilfred, Jr. Foster demands that they
wear the masks until midnight; as for
him, he will wear a death's-head.
They refuse — until he informs them
that they'll be disinherited unless they
comply. Their greed overcomes their
disgust; they all don the masks. As
the hours slowly tick by, Foster's kin
beg to be allowed to discard the
masks, but Foster is steadfast in his
determination. As midnight tolls,
Foster dies. Overjoyed to be rid of
him and to have gained his wealth.

his family throw off the masks — and
are horrified to see that their faces
have taken on the hideous physical

characteristics of the masks.

"Mardi Gras incident, the dramatis
personae being four people who came
to celebrate, and in a sense, let
themselves go. This they did with a
vengeance. They now wear the faces
of all that was inside them — and
they'll wear them for the rest of
their lives, said lives now to be spent
in shadow. Tonight's tale of men,
the macabre, and masks — on the
Twilight Zone." (0'

Twilight Zone 89

1. EXT. SKY NIGHT

Shot of the sky . . . the various
nebulae and planet bodies stand
out in sharp, sparkling relief. As
the CAMEl^ begins a SLOW
PAN across the heavens—

NARRATOR'S VOICE

There is a fifth dimension
beyond that which is known
to man, It is a dimension as
vast as space and timeless as
infinity. It is the middle ground
between light and shadow,
between science and
superstitioa and it lies
between the pit of man's fears
and the summit of his
knowledge. This is the
dimension of imagination. It
is an area which we call the
Twilight Zone.

The CAMERA has begun to PAN
DOWN until it passes the horizpn
and is flush on the OPENING
SHOT.

We are now looking at an
empty patch of desert an arrid,
dull nondescript piece of land, its
monotony broken only by an
occasional scrubby, dying cactus,
and a few sand dunes that shift
nervously and sporadically in a
wind that provides the only
motion and the only sound to an
otherwise stagnant scene. The
CAMERA PANS LEFT very slowly
until it is on a—

2. LONG SHOT A COTTAGE

That sits alone in the desert This
is a ramshackle, two-room affair
made of corrugated steet
driftwood, and other nondescript
material. Alongside is a beat-up
vintage 1930's sedaa Beyond
and behind ttiis is a tiny tool
shed that houses a small
generator. A limp wire extends
from the shed to the shack.

NARRATOR'S \^OICE
(over the pan)

Witness, if you wilt a dungeoa
made out of mountains, salt
flats, and sand that stretch to
infinity. The dungeon has an
inmate; James A. Corry, And
this is his residence; a metal
shack. An old touring car that
squats in the sun and goes
nowhere— for there is nowhere
to go.

At this point we see Corry come
out of the house. He's dressed in
jeans and a ttireadbare shirt. He
looks up toward the pale sky
and the strange, sick, white
gleam of the sua shades his
eyes, walks over toward the car
and stops, looks at it touches it
with his hand, then leans against
it and stares once again toward
the horizon.

3. MED. CLOSE SHOT

Across the car looking at Corry.

The

Lonely

by Rod Serling

THE ORIGINAL -
TELEVISION SCRIPT
FIRST AIRED ON CBS-TV
NOVEMBER 13, 1959

CAST

James A, Corry Jack Warden

Alicia Jean Marsh

Capt. Allenby John Dehner

Adams Ted Knight

Carstairs James 'Turley

90 Twilight Zone

Photos courtesy the Serling Archives, Ithaca College School of Communications, by PJ. Wacker

He's a man in his early forties of
medium height, perhaps a little
more muscular than most men.
His face was once a strong taca
it is no longer. There is no will
lett and no resolve. What we see
on it now is resignation; a sense
of dull, pervading. hopelessness.
He rather aimlessly opens the car
door and, leaving it opea slides
in to sit in the driver's seat and
look out the front windshield. The
CAMERA MOVES AROUND so that
ifs shooting through the front
windshield toward him

4. CLOSE SHOT CORRY

As he gets out of the car and
stares across toward the horizon.

NARRATOR'S VOICE

For the record let it toe known
that James A. Corry is a
convicted criminal placed in
solitary confinement.
Confinement in this case
stretches as far as the eye can
see, because this particular
dungeon is on an asteroid
nine million miles from the
Earth.

The CAMERA PANS slorvly up
toward the sky to where we see
a shot ot the earth.

NARRATOR'S VOICE

Now witness, if you will a
man's mind and body
shriveling in the sua a man
dying of loneliness.

5. MED. SHOT CORRY

Corry, shoulders slumped
walking in a kind of dr aggy,
aimless shuttle, goes back toward
the shack and walks inside.

CUT TO;

6. INT. SHACK FULL SHOT
THE ROOM

The inside, like the exterior, is
makeshift and looks temporary.
'The furniture is made cut of
packing coses. There's an aged
windup Victrola, an icebox. The
bed is disheveled and dirty. He
walks over to a small rickety
table, takes out a dog-eared
ledger, opens it and rifles
through the pages slowly and
rather aimlessly. Then he takes a
pencil sits dowa and starts to
write. The CAMERA MOVES IN
very slowly as he voices aloud
that which he is writing.

CORRY'S VOICE

Entry, fifteenth day, sixth
month . . . the year four. And

all the days and the months
and the years the same.

(a pause. Now he sits as he
writes)

There'll be a supply ship
coming in sooa I think.

They're either due or overdue,
and I hope it's AUenby's ship
because he's a decent man
and he brings things for me.
(he stops writing for a moment
looks down at the ledger, then
continues to write)

Like he brought in the parts to
that antique automobile. I was
a year putting that thing
together— such as it is. A whole
year putting an old car
together.

(a pause)

But thank God for that car
and for the hours it used up
and the days and the weeks. I
can look at it out there and I
know it's real and reality is
what I need. Because what is
there left that I can believe
in? The desert and the wind?
The silence? Or myself— can I
believe in myself anymore?
(another pause)

Disjointed thought ... a little
crazy . . . but maybe I'll
become like that car.
Inanimate. Just an item sitting
in the sand— and then would I
feel loneliness? Would I feel
misery? I wonder . . .

He slowly lets the pencil drop out
of his fingers, looks down at the
book. His eyes close, then he
slumps forward, burying his face
in his arms, leaning against the
table.

DISSOLVE TO;

7. EXT. SHACK DAY

Through the -window we can see
Corry sleeping, still by the table.
There's the distant roaring sound
of engines, a flash of light that
shines against the side of the
shack and enters the window.

We see Corry start, and rise and
race to the door, flinging it opea
peering out over the landscape.

CUT TO;

8. EXT. DESERT LONG SHOT
A GROUP OF THREE MEN

Dressed in simple uniforms not
unlike pilots of today. The
CAMERA STAYS directly on them
as they approach. Into the frame
from behind the camera comes
Corry, who is racing out to meet
them. His fingers clench arrd

unclench at his side. He takes a
few fast stumbling steps toward
thera then thinking better of it
stops and thea gi-ving in agaia
runs toward them again.

9. CLOSE SHOT

As they suddenly meet a few
feet from one another. The head
of the space group stops. This is
AUenby a man in his fifties. He
nods a little curtly.

ALLENBY

How are you, Corry?

CORRY
All right.

There's a silence now. Adams,
one of the other two spacemea
looks around.

ADAMS

Quite a place you got here,
Corry.

CORRY

I'm so glad you like it
ADAMS

I didn't say I liked it. I think it
stinks.

CORRY

You don't have to live here
now, do you?

ADAMS

No, but I've got to come back
here four times a year. And
that's eight months out of
twelve, Corry, away from
earth. Sometimes my kids
don't even recognize me
when I come home.

CORRY
(very simply)

I'm sorry.

ADAMS
(■with a look)

I'll bet you are! But you've got
it made, don't you Corry?
Makes for simple living,
doesn't it?

(he bends down and picks up a
handful of sand)

This is Corr-y^s kingdom.

(he lets the sand run through his
fingers)

Right here. Six thousand miles
north to south. Four thousand
miles east to west— and all of
it's just like this!

The CAMERA is on Corr-y's face
now. He wets his lips. He wants to
soy something -with desperate
urgency. AUenby sees the look,
looks away a little uncomfortably
for a moment

-t, Twilight Zone 91

The Lonely

ALLENBY

We've only got a litfeen-
minute layover, Corry.

Corry wets his lips and tries to
keep the supplication out ot his
voice.

CORRY

Nobody's checking your
schedule out here. Why don't
we have a game of cards or
something?

ALLENBY

(shakes his head)

I'm sorry, Corry. This isn't an
arljitrary decision. It we delay
out time ot departure any
more than filteen minutes, that
places us in a different orbital
position. We'd never make it
back to earth. We'd hove to
stay here at least fourteen
days before this place was in
position again.

CORRY

So, fourteen days? Why not
have us a ball? I've got Some
beer I've saved. We could
play some cards, tell me
what's going on back there—

ALLENBY

(with an embarrassed look
at the others)

I wish we could, Corry, but like
I said— we've only got fifteen
minutes . . .

CORRY

(his voice rising and getting
shaky as if losing control)

Well . . . well what's a few
lousy days to you? Couple of
card games.

(he nods toward the others)

How about you guys? You
think I'll murder you or
something over a bad hand?

ALLENBY

(quietly and firmly)

I'm sorry, Corry.

(he starts to take Corry's arm)

Let's go to the shack—

Corry flings off his arm, not in
anger, but in desperation.

CORRY

All right. Two minutes are
gone now. You've got thirteen
mintues left. I wouldn't want to
foul up your schedule, AUenby.
Not for a . . .

(he looks away)

Not for a lousy game of cards.
Not for a few bottles of
crumrhy beer.

Then he looks up slowly, turns to
92 Twilight Zone

lock eyes with AUenby. He seems
; to catch his breath for a
moment.

CORRY

AUenby . . . what about the
pardon?

ADAMS

(squinting up toward the sky, his
voice very matter of fact)

You're out of luck, Corry.
Sentence reads fifty years and
they're not even reviewing
cases of homicide. You've
been here four now. That
makes forty-six to go, so get
comfortable, dad, huh?

He laughs until his eyes reach
AUenby's, AUenby stares at him
then wets his lips and looks
away. Adams's lough dies out.

10. TRACK SHOT

As the three men head toward
the shack. Corry's eyes are
down, staring at the sand where
his feet make crunchy sounds as
they sink down over the crust of
the top layer. AUenby, alongside
of him as they walk, looks at
him intermittently.

11. DIFFERENT ANGLE

As they reach a small knoll.

Over their shoulder we see the
shack and car sitting here in
mute, ugly loneliness. Corry stops
instinctively to stare at them.
AUenby touches his arm
compassionately with an
instinctive gentleness.

ALLENBY

(quietly)

I'm sorry, Corry. Unfortunately,
we don't make the rules. All
we do is deliver your supplies
and pass on information. I told
you last time there's been a
lot of pressure back home
about this kind of punishment.
There are a whole lot of
people who think it is
unnecessarily cruel Well who
knows what the next couple
of years will bring? They may
change their minds, alter the
low, imprison you on earth
like the old days.

CORRY

(turns to stare intently into the
older man's face)

AUenby, I have to tell you
something. Every morning . , .
every morning when I get up
I tell myself that this is my last
day of sanity, I won't be able
to Uve another day of

loneUness. Not another day,
and by noon when I can't
keep my Lngers still and the
inside of my mouth feels like
gun powder and burnt copper
and deep inside my gut I've
got an ache that won't go
away and seems to be
crawUng aU over the inside of
my body, prickling at me,
tearing little chunks out of me
—and then I think I've got to
hold out for another day, just
another doY.

(then he turns to stare down at
the shack)

But I can't keep doing that
doY after coy for the next
forty-six years. I'll lose my
mind, AUenby.

ADAMS

You're breokin' my heart—

Corry whirls around to stare at
him. His features contort. There's
an animal-like growl that shouts
out deep from his throat and
suddenly, losing aU control he
lunges at Adams, hitting him
twice, crunching, desperate
blows that sm.ash against
Adams's face and propel him
backwards to sprawl face-first in
the sand, AUe:nby and the other
officer grab Corry's arms.

ALLENBY

(shouting)

Easy, Corry, easy!

GraduaUy Corry lets his body
relax, going the route from a
trembling, shaking ague to a
heavy, tired rriotionlessness.

12. MED. CLCSE SHOT ADAMS

As he rises from the sand,
gingerly touches the bruise on
his face.

ADAMS

I wouldn't worry about going
off my rocker, Corry. It's
already hap)pened. Stir crazy,
they used to caU it. Well that's
what you aie now. Stir crazy.

ALLENBY

(taking a step toward him to
keep him back)

Back off, Adams. You and
Carstairs go back and get the
suppUes. Bring them over to
the shack.

ADAMS

(bridling)

Mr. Corry has a broken leg or
something?

He points to Corry,

; ALLENBY

Go ahead, do as I tell you.

And the big crate with the red
; tag— handle that one gently.

: CARSTAIRS

i How about the use ct his
buggy there? Some ot the
stuff's heavy.

CORRY

(as if shaken out of a dream,
softly)

It isn't running today

ADAMS

(laughs)

It isn't running today! What's
the matter, Corry— use it too
much, do you?

(to Carstairs)

You know, there's so many
places a guy can go out here.
There's the country club over
the mound there and the
seashore over that way, and
the drive-in theater, that's
someplace around here, isn't it,
Corry?

ALLENBY

Knock it off, Adams, and go
' get the stuff.

; Adams and Carstairs turn with
’ another look toward Corry and
^ start back across the desert.
Allenby takes Corry's arm and
the two men walk toward the
shack.

13. LONG SHOT

CORRY AND ALLENBY

As they walk past the car and
the shed and into the shack.

14. INT. SHACK FULL SHOT
THE ROOM

Corry goes over to sit on the bed
to stare numbly across the room
at nothing. Allenby crosses over
■to the icebox, takes out a jug of
water, looks around the room
and then over to Corry.

ALLENBY

Glasses?

CORRY

(motions)

Paper cups. On the shelf there.

Allenby unscrews the jcr and
sniffs, makes a face, then pours
some v/ater into a cup, takes it
in a quick gulp.

ALLENBY

We've got some fresh on
bodrd. They'll be bringing it
over.

Corry nods numbly. Allenby pulls
up a chair so that he's sitting

directly opposite Corry.

Brought you some magazines,
too. Strictly on my own.

CORRY

(nods)

Thanks.

ALLENBY

And some old vintage movies.
Science-fiction stuff. You'll get a
kick out of it.

CORRY

(nods, looks up unsmiling)

I'm sure 1 will.

Allenby bites his lip and looks at
Corry for a long, silent moment,
then he rises and crosses to the
window.

ALLENBY

1 brought you something else,
Corry. It would mean my job
if they suspected.

(then he turns toward Corry)

It would be my neck if they
found out for sure.

(he retraces his steps back over
the chair and sits down)

I doubt if it'll be much
consolation to you, but it's not
easy handling this kind of
assignment. Stopping here four
times a year and having to
look at a man's agony.

CORRY

You're quite right. That's
precious little consolation.

There's a long, long silence.
Allenby rises.

ALLENBY

Well, I c?btn't bring you
freedom, Corry. All I can do . . .
all I can do is to try to bring
you things to help keep your
sanity.

(a pause)

Something . . . anything so you
can fight loneliness.

He looks across the room and
out the window.

CORRY

Look, Allenby, I don't want
gifts now, I don't want tidbits. It
makes me feel like an animal
in a cage and there's a nice
old lady out there who wants
to throw peanuts at me.

(he suddenly lashes out and
grabs Allenby)

A pardon, Allenby, that's the
only gift I want. I'm not a
murderer. I killed in self-
defense. A lot of people
believe me and it happens to
be the truth. I killed in self-
defense—

ALLENBY

(gently takes Corry's hands off of
him)

I know Corry. I know all about
it.

15. LONG SHOT THROUGH
THE WINDOW

Adams and Carstairs are both
lugging a small metal cart
loaded down with crates and
supplies. They enter the area of
the shack to bring the cart up
close to the front door. The two of
them take a heavy crate off the
top of the pile, a red tag
fluttering from one end. They lay
it down in the sand.

CARSTAIRS

(caljs)

You want this big crate
opened up. Captain?

16. MED CLOSE SHOT
ALLENBY

ALLENBY
(calls out)

-'4

Twilight Zone 93

Not yet. Stay out there. I'll be
right out.

17. TWO SHOT COREY AND
ALLENBY

CORRY

I'll bile. Captain. What's the
present?

(he looks briefly through the
window)

What is it?

He rises, goes over to the window
to stare out at the long,
rectangular box.

18. MED. LONG SHOT
THROUGH THE WINDOW

Of the box as it lies in the sand.

19. MED. CLOSE SHOT CORRY

As he turns back toward the
room.

CORRY

It it's a twenty-year supply of
puzzles. I'll have to decline
with thanks. I don't need any
puzzles, Allenby. It I want to
try to probe any mysteries— I
can look in the mirror and try
to figure out my own.

ALLENBY

(crosses over to the door, opens it
turns back to Corry)

We've got to go now. We'll be
back in three months.

(a pause)

Are you listening to me,

Corry? This is important

Corry stares at him.

ALLENBY

When you open up the crate
there's nothing you need do.
The . . . item has been vacuum-
packed. It needs no activator
94 Twilight Zone

of any kind. The air will do
that. There'll be a booklet
inside, too, that can answer
any of your questions.

CORRY

You're mysterious as hell.
ALLENBY

I don't mean to be. It's just like
I told you, though— I'm risking
a lot to have brought this
here.

(he points to the door)

They don't know what it is I
brought. I'd appreciate your
waiting until we get out of
sight.

CORRY

(unemotionally)

All right. Have a good trip
back . . . Give my regards to . . .
(he wets his lips)

... to Broadway. And every
place else while you're at it.

ALLENBY

Sure, Corry. I'll see you.

He goes out the door, motions to
the other two men. They start to
follow him.

CUT TO,

20. MED. CLOSE SHOT CORRY

Standing at the door.

CORRY

Allenby!

CUT TO,

21. REVERSE ANGLE ALLENBY
AND THE OTHER TWO
COREY'S P.O.V.

The three men pause to look
toward the shack. In the
foreground in front of them we
see the long crate lying all by
itself in the sand.

CUT TO,

22.. MED. CLOSE SHOT CORRY

He walks down the step and
stands near the box, points to it.

CORRY

I don't much care what it is.
For the thought, Allenby. For
the ... for the decency of it . . .

I thank you.

23. MED. SHOT ALLENBY

ALLENBY

You're quite welcome, Corry.

He turns and the other two follow
him.

24. LONG ANGLE SHOT

Looking down at them as they
slowly tramp across the sand
and disappear over the line of
dunes.

25. MED. CLOSE SHOT CORRY

He watches them go, shading his
eyes again at the sun then very
slowly he looks down at the box.
He stares at it for a long moment,
then he kneete down to feel its
sides and finally finds the two
release catches. His hands go out
to touch them simultaneously. He
pushes them, and very slowly
the top of the box opens.

26. TIGHT CLOSE ANGLE SHOT

Looking up as from inside the
box toward Corry's face as he
stares into it. His eyes suddenly
widen with astonishment.

CUT ABRUPTLY TO,

27. MED. CLOSE SHOT INSERT
SECTION OF A SPACE
CRAFT

What we are seeing is just part
of a hatch and a metal ladder.
Carstairs is just clambering up
them to disappear inside this
ship. Adams starts to follow him.
He pauses halfway up to look
toward Allentry, who in turn is
staring off into the distance.

ADAMS

Captain— just man to man,
huh?

ALLENBY

What?

ADAMS

What did you bring him?

Whai was in the box?

28. MED. CLOSE SHOT
ALLENBY

As he slowly scratches the beard
stubble of his square jaw.

ALLENBY

(very softly as if to no one in
particular)

I'm not sure really, Maybe it's
just an illusion— or maybe it's
salvation,

Then he turns, motions Adams
up the ladder, and then follows
him up.

DISSOLVE TOi

29. EXT. THE SHACK

The top of the box has been
opened and as the CAMERA
PANS over it toward the shack
we see that it is empty. The
CAMERA continues to PAN over
to the shack.

DISSOLVE THROUGH TO:

30. INT. SHACK

Corry stands at the far end of
the room staring off beyond the
camera. He has a bock in his
hand which he suddenly seems
to remember. He looks down at
it, stares at the cover for a long
moment then opens it with both
his hands. He studies it perplexed
for a long moment then he looks
up again. Then he looks down
at the book again and slowly he
reads aloud.

CORRY

You are now the proud owner
of a robot built in the form of
a woman To all intent and
purpose this creature is a
woman Physiologically and
psychologically she is a
human being with a set of
emotions, a memory track, the
ability to reason, to think, and
to speak. She is beyond illness,
and under normal
circumstances should have a
life span similar to that of a
comparable human being. Her
name is Alicia.

Very slowly Corry's head rises.
SLOW PAN SHOT ACROSS the
room to a shot of Alicia who sits
in a chair looking back at him.
While she looks human there is
something too immobile, too
emotionless about her features.
There is a deadness to the eyes
when they look back at him,
showing neither resignation nor
interest and only bare
awareness. She's dressed in a
simple loose, flowing garment
that neither adds to nor detracts
from her femininity. Corry takes
a few hesitant steps toward her,
his eyes wide, a fright working its

way out. His mouth moves but
nothing comes.

31. CLOSE SHOT THE GIRL

AUCIA

That's my name— Alicia.

What's yours?

32. CLOSE SHOT CORRY

He stops dead in his tracks and
suddenly he looks horrified, sick
with distaste. He shakes his head
from side to side and backs
away,

CORRY

(in a very low voice)

Get out of here.

(now a shout)

Get out of here! 1 don't want
any machine in here! Go on,
get out of here!

With an effort he grabs the girl
and propels her out the door
and slams it behind her. Then he
leans against the door, eyes
closed, breathing heavily and
gradually his composure comes
back. He takes a few steps back
toward the center of the room. In
the process he looks toward the
window.

33. LONG SHOT THROUGH
THE WINDOW

The girl stands there in the yard
staring at him.

A SLOW FADE TO BLACK

END ACT ONE

ACT TWO

FADE ON:

34. EXT. DESERT CORRY'S
SHACK IN FOREGROUND

DISSOLVE TO:

35. INT. SHACK

Corry is in the process of putting
up a shelf. He stands on a small
aluminum ladder, pounding with
hammer and nails. The sweat
pours down his face. He tests the
shelf, then gets down off the
ladder, picks up a towel and
wipes his face, suddenly looks
down at his feet.

36. CLOSE SHOT
BUCKET OF WATER

CAMERA PULLS BACK for shot of
Alicia standing there.

CORRY

Well?

AUCIA

I brought you some water.
Where shall I put it?

CORRY

Just leave it there and get out,
AUCIA

It will get warm just sitting
there.

CORRY

(takes a glass, dips it in
the water)

You'd know, huh?

He takes a drink.

AUCIA

I can feel thirst.

Corry wipes his mouth with the
back of his hand and looks at
her intensely.

37. CLOSE SHOT CORRY

As he stares at her. The same
look of abhorrence as if
clinically examining some
foreign object.

38. CLOSE SHOT THE GIRL

Her eyes go down and she turns
away.

39. TWO SHOT

CORRY

What else can you feel?
AUCIA

I don't understand—

CORRY

I suppose you can feel heat
and cold? How about pain?
Can you feel pain?

AUCIA
(nods softly)

That too.

Corry takes a step over toward
her, looking down at her.

CORRY

How? How can you? You're a
machine, aren't you?

AUCIA

(whispering)

Yes.

CORRY

Of course you are. So why
didn't they build you to look
like a machine? Why aren't
you made out of metal with
nuts and bolts sticking out of
you? With wires and
electrodes and things like
that?

(hte face contorts now and his
voice rises)

Why do they turn you into a
lie? Why do they cover you
with what looks like flesh?

Why do they give you a face?
A face that if I look at long
enough makes me think . . ,

- - Twilight Zone 95

The Lonely

makes me believe that . . .

His hands grab her shoulders
and go up past her neck to cup
her face in a hard, painful grasp,
Alicia closes her eyes against the
pain,

AUCIA

Corry—

He releases her, strides past her
and out the door,

CUT TO

40. EXT. THE SHACK

Corry stands halfway to the car,
his back to the shack.

CORRY

You mock me, you know that?
When you look at me. When
you talk to me— I'm being
mocked.

AUCIA
I'm sorry.

(then she slowly reaches up, feels
of her neck and shoulders)

You hurt me, Corry, «

CORRY '

(turns to her, walks over very
close to her)

Hurt you? How could I hurt
you?

(he grabs her again)

This isn't flesh. There aren't any
nerves under there. There
aren't any tendons or muscles.

He suddenly pushes her bodily
away.

CUT TO:

41. FLASH SHOT

As she sprawls head first into the
sand.

42. TWO SHOT

Then in the same fury that
knows neither logic nor
understanding, he searches
wildly around and then picks up
a shovel. He holds it by the
handle and brandishes it up
high. He shouts at her.

CORRY

You know what you are?

You're like that broken-down
heap I've got sitting in the
yard. You're a hunk of metal
with arms and legs instead of
wheels. But that heap doesn't
mock me like you do. It doesn't
look at me with make-believe
eyes and talk to me with a
make-believe voice.

(he takes a. step toward her, now
the shovel up high)

Well, listen you . . . listen
96 Twilight Zone

machine. I'm sick at being
- mocked by a ghost. By a
memory of women. And that's
all you are. You're a reminder
to me that I'm so lonely I'm
about to lose my mind.

And now his face is completely
contorted, wild-eyed. He raises
the shovel and is about to bring
it down on her.

43. ANGLE SHOT
LOOKING DOWN AT HER

She looks up at him and then
her eyes close and tears appear.
Then when she opens her eyes
again we look at her as from a
new and fresh perspective. The
face is no longer inanimate, no
longer immobile. It now has
depth, emotion. It is filled with the
nuances and mysteries of the
woman and there is a beauty
now that shines out.

44. REVERSE ANGLE LOOKING
UP AT CORRY

As he reacts. He hesitates and
then lets the shovel drop out of
his hand onto the sand. Very,
very slowly he kneels down to
crouch very close to her. His
hand reaches out and touches
the tears on her face and now
his voice is gentle.

CORRY

You can cry too, can't you?

AUCIA

(nods)

With reason. And I can feel
loneliness, too.

Corry takes her arm and helps
her to her feet then stands very
close to her, looking down at her
face.

CORRY

Well go back inside now.

We'll eat our dinner.

AUCIA
All right.

She starts to walk on ahead of
him.

CORRY

Alicia.

She turns to look at him.

CORRY

I don't care ... I don't care
how you were born ... or
made. You're flesh and blood
to me. You're a woman.

(a pause.)

You're my companion, Alicia. I
need you desperately.

45. CLOSE SHOT AUCIA

She smiles,

AUCIA

And I need you, Corry.

He goes up to walk alongside of
her.

46. LONG AltJGLE SHOT

looking; down on them

As they walk toward the shack.

LAP DISSOLVE TO:

47. EXT. SHACK PORCH
DAY MED. CLOSE
SHOT CORRY

As he sits in the homemade
rocker. He looks off toward the
horizon and then slowly begins
to write as we hear his voice.
CORRY'S VOICE

Alicia has been with me now
for eleven months. Twice
when AUenby has brought the
ship in with supplies I've
hidden her so that the others
wouldn't see her and I've seen
the quesion in AUenby's eyes
each time. It's a question I
have myself. It's cifficult to
write down what has been
the sum total of this very
strange and bizarre
relationship. It is man and
womaa man and machine,
and there are times even
when I know that Alicia is
simply an extension of me. I
hear my words coming from
her. My emotions. The things
that she has learned to love
are those things that I've
loved.

He stops abruptly as he listens to
Alicia singing from inside the
shack. He smiles and then
continues to write again.

CORRY'S VOICE

But I think I've reached the
point now where I shall not
analyze Alicia any longer. I
shall accept her here simply
as a part of my life— an
integral part.

He continues to write silently
now, turning the page to
continue on the other side, and
then he stops, puts the book and
pencil dowa rises, goes to the
door and stands there looking at
Alicia. She turns to smile at him
and he enters the room. The
CAMERA MOVES BACK so that it
is shooting at them through the
open door and across the ledger
book which lies face up. We
hear Corry's voice.

CORRY'S VOICE

Because I'm not lonely any
longer. Each day can now be
lived with.

(a pause)

I love Alicia. Nothing else
matters.

DISSOLVE TO

48. EXT. DESERT NIGHT
LONG SHOT LOOKING UP
TOWARD A MOUItro

OF SAND

As hand in hand, Alicia and
Corry race down toward the
camera. He stops her abruptly
and points to the sky.

CORRY

Alicia, look. That's the star,
Betelgeuse. It's in the
constellation ot Orion And
there's the "Great Bear" with its
pointer stars in line with the
Northern Star, And there's the
constellation Hercules. You see,
Alicia?

He traces a path across the sky
with his upraised hand and her
eyes toliow it. Then he turns to
look down at her tace upturned
in the hall-light.

AUCIA

(sottly)

God's beauty,

CORRY

(nods)

That's right, Alicia. God's
beauty.

Suddenly the girl's eyes stop as
they traverse the sky. She points.

AUCIA

That star, Corry? What's that
star?

49. CLOSE SHOT CORRY

As he stares at something in the
sky.

CORRY

That's not a star. 'That's a ship,
Alicia,

AUCIA
A ship?

Very slowly there's a ray ot light
that plays on both their laces
and gets brighter and larger.
Alicia moves closer to him.

AUCIA

'There's no ship due here now,
Corry. You said not lor another
three months. You said alter
the last time it wouldn't be lor
another—

CORRY

(thoughtlully)

It must be AUenby's ship. It's
the only one that ever comes
close. TTiey stop at other
asteroids, then come here.

(he looks away again, pensively)
That means they'll probably
be here in the morning,
(another pause)

I wonder why.

AUCIA

(takes a lew steps toward him,
concerned)

Corry— what's it mean?

CORRY

(turns to her and smiles)

In the morning . . . we'll find
out. Come on, let's go back to
the house.

• DISSOLVE TO

50. EXT. DESERT DAY
LONG SHOT
TOP OF DUNES

Three space-suited figures
appear. AUenby's in the
foreground. He suddenly stops
and looks toward the camera as
Corry steps in Iront ol it and into
the frame.

ALLENBY

Hello, Corry. We wondered
where you were.

CORRY

You have trouble?

ALLENBY

No, we had no trouble.

He motions the others to follow
him and they walk down the
dune to stand close to Corry,

ALLENBY

This is a scheduled stop.
ADAMS

We've got good news for you,
Corry.

CORRY

(looks Irom lace to lace)

I'm not interested.

The others exhange looks ol
surprise.

ALLENBY

You better hear what it is,
CORRY

You heard me, Allenby, I'm
not interested.

ALLENBY

You will be. This I guarantee!

Corry tak«s a lew backward
steps looking paranoically Irom
one to the other,

CORRY

Allenby, give me a break, will
you? I don't want trouble.

ALLENBY

We don't either,

ADAMS

(to one ol the others)

He gets worse! It we'd come a
month later he'd have been
eating sand or something.

Corry* now turns and starts to
walk away irom them,
occasionally looking over his
shoulder,

ALLENBY
(calls out to him)

Corry!

51. TRACK SHOT
CORRY AS HE WALKS

Fader and faster and is about to
break into a dead run.

CUT TO:

52. LONG SHOT

OVER CORRY'S SHOULDER
LOOKING AT ALLENBY

Who now shouts.

Twilight Zone 97

ALLENBY

Corry!

He runs, crunching on the hard
sand, to come up close to Corry,
He grabs him, whirls him around.

ALLENBY *

It's this way, Corry. All the
sentences have been
reviewed. They've given you
a pardon. We're to take you
back home on the ship.

But we've got to take ott from
here in exactly twenty
minutes. We can't wait any
longer. We've been dodging
meteor storms all the way out.
We're almost out ot fuel. Any
longer than twenty minutes
we'll have passed the point of
departure and then I don't
think we'd ever make it.

Corry stares at him and then at
the other men who have come
down the dune behind him.

53. TIGHT CLOSE SHOT
CORRY

His eyes dart about, going wide
as the sense of what's been said
to him seeps in. He tries to speak,
but for a moment, nothing comes
out.

CORRY

Wait a minute, Allenby. Wait
just a minute.

(he closes his eyes tightly, then
opens them)

What did you just say? What
did you just say about a—

ALLENBY
(filling it in)

A pardon,

ADAMS

(coming up alongside)

But it won't do any of us any
98 Twilight Zone

good unless you get your stuff
together and get ready to
move, Corry. We've picked up
seven other men off asteroids
and we've only got room for
about fifteen pounds of stuff, so
you'd better pick up what you
need in a hurry and leave
the rest of it behind.

(then with a gria looking off in
the direction of the shack)

Such as it is.

CORRY

(struggling to keep his voice firm
but already it begins to shake
with joy and excitement)

Stuff? My stuff? I don't even
have fifteen pounds of stuff!

He laughs uproaringly, turns, and
again starts to walk toward the
shack.

54. TRACK SHOT ALL OF
THEM AS THEY WALK

Corry's voice goes up and down
in uncontrollable laughter, a
combination of nerves, relief and
almost unbearable excitement.
The words spe'w out as he walks.

CORRY

I've got a shirt, a pencO and a
ledger book. A pair of shoes,
(then he throws back his head
and laughs again)

The car you can keep here.
That'll be for the next poor
devil.

ALLENBY

(evenly)

There won't be any next poor
devil. There won't any
more exiles, Corry. This was
the last time,

CORRY

Good! Wonderful! Thank God
for that!

They continue to walk again,
CORRY

We'll let it rest here then. The
farthest auto graveyard in the
universe! And Alicia and I will
wave to it as we leave. We'll
just look out of a porthole and
throw it a kiss goodbye. The
car, the shack, the salt lakes,
the range. The whole works!
Alicia and I will just—

He stops abruptly, suddenly
conscious of the silence and the
looks.

55. PAN SHOT ACROSS THE
FACES OF THE OTHER MEN

As they stare at him.

ADAMS

(his eyes narrow)

Who? Who, Corry?

56. TIGHT CLOSE SHOT
ALLENBY

His eyes close for a moment.

ALLENBY

(sotto)

Oh, my dear God, I forgot her!

57. GROUP SHOT

Corry's eyes move around from
face to face.

CORRY

Allenby—

(and then accusative)

Allenby, it's Alicia—

CARSTAIRS

(whispers under his breath to
Adams)

He's out of his mind, isn't he?
ADAMS

Who's Alicia, Corry?

CORRY

(laughs uproariously)

Who's Alicia? Adams, you
idiot! Who's Alicia! You
brought her! You brought her
here in a box! She's a
woman—

(and then he stops, looks away
for a moment, softly, then looks
toward Allenby)

A robot.

(and then once again looks at
Allenby)

But closer to a woman. She's
kept me alive, Allenby. 1
swear to yiDU— if it weren't for
her—

He looks around again at the
circle of silent faces that stare at
him.

58. CLOSE SHOT CORRY

CORRY

What's the matter? Vou
worried about Alicio?

(he shakes his head)

You needn't be. Alicia's
harmless. I tell you she's like a
woman. And she's gentle and
kind and without her, AUenby,
I tell you without her I'd have
been finished. I'd have given
up.

(a long pause and then very
quietly)

You would have orrly had to
come back to bury me!

59. GROUP SHOT
ADAMS

(to AUenby)

That's what you wouldn't let us
look at huh? The crate with
the red tag—

CORRY
(to AUenby)

Sorry, Captain but I had to let
it out—

ALLENBY

That's aU right Corry. 'That's aU
over with, but untorhrnately
that's not the problem—

CORRY

(again with a high
uncontroUable lough)

Problem? There aren't any
problems! There are no more
problems left on heaven or
earth! We'U pack up titteen
pounds ol stuff and we'U climb
in that ship of yours and
when we get back to that
beautiful green earth—

60. TIGHT CLOSE SHOT
CORRY

CORRY

(he whispers it)

Fifteen pounds.

(and then he shouts it)

Fifteen pounds?

(he looks from face to face
again)

You've got to have room for
more than that. Throw out stuff.
Throw out equipment. Alicia
weighs more than fif :een
pounds.

61. GROUP SHOT

ALLENBY

(quietiy)

That's the point, Corry. We're
stripped now. We've got room
for you and nothing else
except that ledger of yours
and the pencil.

(he shakes his head)

You'll have to leave the robot
here.

CORRY

(shouting)

She's not just a robot, AUenby.
You don't understand. You
leave her behind— that's
murder.

ALLENBY

(shakes his head)

I'm sorry, Corry— I don't have
any choice—

CORRY

(backing away, his voice
desperate)

No, AUenby. You don't
understand. You can't leave
her behind.

(and then he screams)

Alicia, come here!

(then he turns to them)

You'U see, You'U see why you
can't leave her behind.

(then he shouts again)

AUcia!

62. LONG ANGLE SHOT
LOOKING DOWN

As Corry races toward the shack,
foUowed by the others.

CUT ABRUPTLY TO,

63. INT. SHACK

As Corry smashes open the door
and races inside only to find the
room empty. He stands in the
middle of the room looking
around, and then over toward
the door as AUenby enters
foUowed by the other men.

ALLENBY

Where is she, Corry?

CORRY

I don't know. But when you
see her you'll know why you
can't leave her behind.

ADAMS

Look, Corry. We just want you
to get your gear packed and
get out of here.

(he looks at his watch, nervously
to AUenby)

We've only got about ten
minutes. How about it.

Captain?

ALLENBY

(gently)

Come oa Corry.

CORRY

(backs further into the room)

No! I'm not leaving, AUenby. I
told you that, I can't leave.

ALLENBY

You don't understand. This is
our iast trip here. This is
anybody's last trip. This is off
the route now. That means no

suppUes, no nothing. 'That
means if you stay here you
die here. And that way,
there'd be a day, Corry, when
you'd pray for that death to
come quicker than it's
bargained for—

CORRY

(illogicaUy, half-wUdly)

I can't help it AUenby. I can't
leave her behind. And you
won't take her. So that means
I stay.

(and then looking over his
shoulder wUdly, he screams)
AUcia! Come here, AUcia! Let
them see you. Don't be
afraid—

64. CLOSE SHOT ALLENBY

ALLENBY

Corry, listen to me. I sow this
. . . this thing get crated, shoved
into a box.

CORRY

(shakes his head)

I don't care.

ALLENBY

She's a machine, Corry. She's
a motor with wires and tubes
and batteries.

CORRY

(screaming)

She's Or woman!

AUenby wets his Ups, bites his Up
for a moment standing there
unsure, not knowing what to do.
Through the window, outside in
the yard, we see another
member of the crew walk
through the yard, pause near the
shack.

CREWMAN

Captain? Captain AUenby?

ALLENBY

What?

CREWMAN

Captain we've got just four
minutes left We've got to take
off! If we wait longer than that
sir, we'U have moved to a
point too far out I don't think
we'U make it sir!

ADAMS

(his voice frightened)

How about it Captain AUenby,
leave him here!_

ALLENBY

We can't leave him here. Sick,
mad, or haU-alive, we've got
to bring him back. Those are
the orders.

He takes another step toward
, ■ t Twilight Zone 99

The Lonely

Corry who backs against the
wall.

ALLENBY

Corry, now it isn't just you.

Now it's all ot us. So that
means we can't talk any
more and we can't argue with
you. We simply just have to
take you!

He makes a quick motion with
one hand. Adams and Carstairs
take a step into the room to »
flank Allenby and to converge
on Corry. Corry, with a kind ot
animal shout, bulls his way past
them pushing Adams out ot the
way and bolts out ot the door.

CUT TO.

65. LONG ANGLE SHOT
LOOKING DOWN ON THE
DESERT

At the tigure ot Corry as he
races, stumbling, tailing, picking
himselt up again. His voice can
be heard shouting over and over
again. *

CORRY

(shouting)

Alicia! Alicia!

66. DIFFERENT ANGLES OF
HIM RUNNING

The others in pursuit.

67. LONG ANGLE SHOT
LOOKING UP TOWARD
A DUNE

As he suddenly appears at the
top and stares dowa CAMERA
S\A^EPS to the lett and down tor
a shot ot Alicia standing alone
down in the depression ot the
sand.

68. FULL SHOT THE PLACE

CORRY

Alicia!

Behind him Allenby and the
others appear. Corry starts
toward the girl. Carstairs tackles
him, and then Adams pounces
on him. They hold him tight as
he shouts.

CORRY

Alicia, talk to them. Tell them
you're a woman—

Allenby takes a tew steps down
the dune and stops haltway
down. He looks back at Corry.

ALLENBY

I'm sorry, Corry. 1 don't have
any choice.

(a pause. His voice is quiet)

I have no choice at all.

69. CLOSE SHOT HIS HAND

As it unbuckles the gun holster
on his belt.

70. TIGHT CLOSE SHOT
CORRY

His eyes go wide.

CORRY

(screams)

No, Allenby! No! She's a
human being!

71. FLASH SHOT
BEHIND AUCIA

Looking straight up at the dune
at Allenby, who takes the gun
out and tires directly into her
tace.

73. ANGLE SHOT LOOKING
UP TOWARD THE BACK OF
ALICIA

As very slowly she crumples to
the sand, blotting out the camera
momentarily,

74. CLOSE SHOT CORRY

His lingers convulsively move
away trom his face and tall to
his side. He takes three slow steps
down the dune toward the
crumpled tigure. Then he looks
down. PAN SHOT with his eyes to
a close shot ot Alicia's hand
clenched tightly. A farther PAN
shot across her arm and
shoulder to the back ot her
head. Then a very SLOW PAN
shot two or three teet across the
ground to a shot ot the remnants
ot a broken machine, twisted
and bent wires, a cracked eye, a
couple ot Iragments ot plastic, all
the remains ot a face.

75. GROUP SHOT THE MEN

With Corry in the toreground, A
tew teet behind him is Allenby,
and then on the dune are the
others. Crewman comes into the
trame in the background.

CREWMAN

It's got to be now. Captain
Allenby !

ALLENBY
(nods, sottly)

It be now!

(then he turns to Corry)

Come on, Corry, It's time to go
home.

Now numbly, without directioa
Corry allows himselt to be led up
the dune and across the desert.

76. LONG ANGLE SHOT
LOOKING DOWN ON THEM

As they walk. The light from the
ship gets brighter and brighter as
they approach it.

77. CLOSE GROUP SHOT
AS THEY PAUSE

For a moment. Corry looks back
at the crumpled tigure in the
distance, then again turns and
begins to walk.

78. TRACK SHOT WITH THEM

As their teet crunch on the sand
past the shed, the car and all
the rest ot it.

ALLENBY
(alongside Corry)

It's all behind you now, Corry.
All behind you. Like a bad
dream. A nightmare . . . and
when you wake up you'll be
on earth. You'll be home.

CORRY

Home?

ALLENBY
That's right.

(a long pause, putting his hand
on Corry's arm)

All you're leaving behind
Corry, is loneliness.

79. TIGHT CLOSE SHOT
CORRYS FACE

As the tears roll down his cheeks.
His eyes move down to the sand
by his teet and tor a moment his
tace is impassive and immobile.
He nods slowly.

CORRY

1 must remember to ... I must
remember to keep that in
mind!

Then he turns to walk ahead ot
the others,

80. LONG i\NGLE SHOT
LOOKO'rG DOWN AT THE
LITTLE GROUP OF MEN

As they pass the shack and then
move away into the night
toward the distant light that
flickers on them beckons them
away. The CAMERA PANS them
and up into the starry night sky.

NARRATOR'S VOICE

Down below, on a microscopic
piece ot sand that floats
through space, is a tragment
ot a man's lite, Lett to rust is
the place he lived in and the
machines he used. Without
use they will disintegrate trom
the wind and the sand and
the years that act upon them.
All ot Mr. Corry's machines . . .
including the one made in his
image, kept alive by love, but
now . . . obsolete ... in the
Twilight Zone!

A SLOW FADE TO BLACK

THE END ®

100 Twilight Zone

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